We are very excited to launch the first ever edition of Beaminster School’s new newspaper, The Beaminster Bureau. The writing is first class and we are so proud of all the amazing young journalists from Year 9. The articles in this issue range from national current affairs to local school and town ‘hot topics’. The professionalism and journalistic bravery shown by our fearless news hounds was wonderful; they asked the hard questions in a measured, neutral capacity and while they were skilled enough to secure the high profile people to talk to, they weren’t afraid to speak truth to power in the interviews themselves.

What a brilliant morning we had at Merriott Primary School. We worked with Monarch Class on a dark tale of vampirism, grumpy children and Kung-Fu cheese eating. Superb! ‘Pure Chaos’, tells the tale of a vampire, wronged by royalty and out for revenge.

We are very excited to be working with a talented group of writers from Wadham School in Crewkerne on a fantastic science writing project. These Year 9 students are using stories to explain the facts behind the Primary Physics curriculum.

We visited Haselbury Plucknett Primary School this week, to work with their brilliant Year 5s and 6s. The pupils worked their socks off and came up with a great story with a twist that no-one saw coming. Worthy of Agatha Christie, The Perilous Party is a classic old time murder mystery…or is it?

We had a great time on Friday, working with a fantastic bunch of writers from Salway Ash Primary School. The collective writing talents of Year 3 from Badger Class, came together to create an incredible tale of intrigue and extreme boredom, entitled Paranoid Pickle.

We were so impressed by the amazing Year 7s at Budmouth Academy who worked with us on Friday to write a tale of terrifying dragons, mutant horrors and poisoned sandwiches. Their story, ‘A Bacon Baguette in the Deep Dark Woods’, follows Peter the Griffin and his best friend Daisy as they encounter unpleasant creatures and scary goings on in the forest near their farm.

We were extremely proud to be able to launch our latest anthology of short stories on Tuesday. Written by an absurdly talented group of writers from Beaminster School, 30 Shades of Green imagines a future where nature is changed or where our human nature has undergone alteration.

Very pleased to be able to help promote the important work of Mr Clearview and his team from the National Independent Transparent Window Inspection Team as they went into Salway Ash School last week.

We felt like proper rock stars taking our group of Year 6s from Broadwindsor Primary School to record an album of their songs on Friday. The Songbank team got to lay down their tracks at the achingly cool Echotown Studios outside Dorchester and they really excelled themselves!

We’ve been having a lot of fun working with a group of enthusiastic young journalists from Beaminster School, creating a brand new print publication. This group of tenacious news-hounds are digging the dirt and uncovering the truth of everything from how the cost of living increase is affecting businesses in Beaminster, to whatever happened to the Beaminster Swimming Pool.

Wednesday saw us working with some politicians in the making. The Year 4s at Salway Ash Primary School were reading ‘Cloud Tea Monkeys’ by Elspeth Graham and Mal Peet but the monkeys had disappeared. Who would now help Tashi pick the Cloud Tea from the tops of the trees?

The launch parties for our new anthology of subversive verses have been wonderful! We’re so proud of everyone who worked with a poet to create such a powerful anthology. The launches have been both celebrations of the amazing writers who contributed to this anthology, and testament to the power of poetry to address societal issues, big and small, head on without fear.

We went to Salway Ash Primary this week to talk about creating characters. We worked with their brilliant Year 3s until we were interrupted by a call from our Bank Manager; someone had broken into the vault! The children gathered the evidence left by the intruder and they all worked together to create… Sprinkles, the Donut Reindeer!

It’s International Poetry Day and we’re celebrating the official release of our latest publication - ‘Speak Up!’ This amazing anthology of subversive verse has been written by some extremely talented poets from Axe Valley Academy, Badmouth Academy and Sir John Colfox Academy. Each group got to work with a professional poet with one simple brief, to write a poem that will change the world. No pressure there, then!

We were delighted to be back at Charmouth Primary School for World Book Day last week. In a very special assembly, both Adventurers and Navigators classes heard their fantastic stories read by the incomparable Martin Freeman and the ultra-cool Edith Bowman.

We loved working with Navigators Class at Charmouth School to create this fantastical, adrenaline-pumping story about a lonely Cheese Wizard and her battles with the ultimate enemy - the Scottish Cheese Knife. Things go from bad to worse for our heroine, but does she have a plan up her sleeve? Does she even have sleeves?