Weird, wonderful, magical and mystical ideas for a wide variety of creatures, situations and places have been created by young writers in Thanet.
Guiding the Year 3 and Year 4 pupils on their voyage of discovery was author and playwright Sam Gayton from Margate who encouraged the children to explore and develop their creative writing at a one day session.
Hosted by Newington Community Primary School in Ramsgate, it also featured pupils from Chilton Primary, Upton Juniors, and Ramsgate Arts Primary who took part in series of lively and thought-provoking Able Writers’ Day workshops.
Sam, whose published works include The Snow Merchant, His Royal Whiskers, Hercufleas and Lilliput, told them: “Storytelling is just like any other skill – music, sport for instance – and you can get really good at it.
“We will discover story ideas and then share them with each other – the pupils here today from other schools have imaginations you have never met before, and it is OK to be a burglar and use their ideas if you really like them.
“The art of story creation is to get readers’ attention through a really strong opening paragraph where you create enough intrigue to hook people in and encourage them to read on.”
The pupils explored a range of ideas to set their creative plots onto paper in story form and during the day they also enjoyed writing poetry and a fun word challenge as well as craft-making.
The Able Writers’ Day was co-ordinated by Natalie Barrow, Deputy Head of School at Chilton Primary School.
She said: “It was astounding to see how quickly all the children came up with a whole raft of vastly different ideas that were really conjured up from nothing to come to life on the page.
“Sam was enthusiastic and challenged them to dare to go beyond the norm, and they loved it. You could see their confidence blossoming as they played with characters, places and scenarios.”
Each of the school groups will take what they have experienced back to their own classrooms and pass on their new skills to fellow pupils.
Cliff Stokes, Head Teacher at Newington, said: “We were happy to host the sessions and it was lovely to see children from four different schools engaging and sharing thoughts and ideas. Collaborative learning is an important part of their education.”