Things were getting serious for the Bank Manager when we arrived at Mountjoy School to work with Hazel Class. We had a survival guide to write, and as ever, the Bank Manager had managed to get themselves into a bit of a pickle. In attempting to rescue a cat from a tree, they had only gone and got themselves stuck up there! Fortunately, Hazel Class were on hand to help us tackle whatever disaster had befallen him!

Things were not looking good for the Bank Manager when we arrived at Radipole Primary School to work with Year 4T. He was supposed to be joining us for our workshop, but instead we received a rather alarming phone call. The Bank Manager was trapped inside the belly of a whale, his oxygen running low and time running out. Not ideal.

Oh, the relief!

When the grumpy Bank Manager announced he was going to be coming in to visit us and watch us work with a team of Year 4 pupils at Beaminster St Mary’s school last week, we were, to say the least, a little nervous. I mean, no-one likes having the boss looking over their shoulder. So, when the phone rang and it turned out they couldn’t make it we were secretly quite pleased. And when they told us that they couldn’t make it because they were stuck in the middle of a herd of cows, we were quite amused. But when they tasked us with coming up with a plan to rescue them – well… we were delighted.

Working in Chestnut class at Mountjoy School, a special setting in Beaminster, we took our character creation workshop on an unforgettable ride. Once again, The Bank Manager had arrived to a scene of devastation at the Bank; scattered objects, discarded clothing and abandoned items littering the desks and floor. So, with this brilliant bunch of student investigators, we set out as detectives to uncover the culprit.

We had a fantastically creative morning last week with Class 3B at Radipole. While we were hoping to do some writing with the class, the Grumpy Bank Manager had other ideas - hijacking our workshop to help him solve a mystery…who had left their stuff all over our offices? So, as the class turned detective, we began to use the clues to track down just who had been sneaking around our Bank in the dead of night.

When the Grumpy Bank Manager interrupted our workshop this week, calling in with a mystery for us to solve, a group of smart Year Threes from Radipole Primary School answered the call. The Bank Manager had found all sorts of strange items scattered around the offices. The pupils quickly became detectives, working out who might have left the things behind and how they ended up there.

magine your perfect holiday…and now your worst.

Over the summer we were lucky enough to work with a fantastic bunch of budding comic-book artists, to bring some of these vacation nightmares to life, in a graphic novel, due for release shortly.

With the summer break looming, we really enjoyed working with the team from Dorset Youth on some extreme holidays! We worked for a morning with the ever brilliant Milla Scott-Buller, to create comics outlining our hopes and fears for the perfect summer holiday.

STOP THE PRESS - Axminster Home Education Network have produced the first ever edition of “The Home-Ed Times” a publication featuring news, fiction, features, and long-form journalism from a very talented team of young writers. Issue one was written over the course of just seven weeks this summer and is officially out on Friday.

In an extraordinary week of creativity, 25 young people from Bridport and across West Dorset stepped inside their own imaginations and invited us all to follow. Each day, we built a rich, immersive, multimedia installation that gave adults a rare glimpse inside the imagination of a child.

Over five weeks, two classes of Year 5 pupils at Radipole Primary School took their imaginations to the stars. In partnership with the brilliant Milla Scott Bueller, The Bank guided these young comic creators through a series of graphic novel workshops. Each child crafted a single-page comic, all set aboard a mysterious space station. The result was the "Colossal Collection of Cosmic Comix"

We all love a good scandal, and this week we launched a whole book-full of them.

We had a fantastic launch event at Crewkerne Library last night, for our latest story anthology publication - “Scandals, Rumours and Lies”. This collection of strange fiction, dark imaginings and cautionary tales is overflowing with tales of betrayal and back-stabbing, surprise twists and unexpected conclusions. The launch is the culmination of a 10-week fiction writing project undertaken by a very talented group of Year 9 pupils from Wadham School in Somerse

Connecting humans across the generations, our Pen-Pals program culminated this week in our meet and greet sessions. Finally, the participants from Beaminster St Mary’s Year Five class got to meet their penpal correspondents from Harbour House, West Bay, The Hyde residential home in Walditch and Saint Mary’s Gardens housing in Beaminster.

Last night saw a very exciting double launch, celebrating writers and performers from Salway Ash Primary School. Clocktower Records hosted the event which saw the launch of our latest SONGBANK CD of poems and songs by the pupils, celebrating the childrens’ voices, and “Travel Stories”, an anthology of travel writing from the Year Six pupils.

There are, broadly speaking, two types of problem. The first can be solved with a little thought, a bit of patience, and perhaps a cup of tea. The second involves a grumpy Bank Manager, a set of lost keys, and a tiger enclosure. When we arrived to work with Year 4’s Dolphin Class at Beaminster St Mary’s Academy, it was immediately clear which type we were dealing with.

Working with Beaminster St Mary’s Octopus Class is always a delight and this time around was no exception. The Year 3 writers worked together brilliantly, sharing their ideas and building their narrative together, to create an epic tale of friendship, derring-do and bone-eating ants. Seriously.

Some stories stay on the page, others were never meant to.

At Buckland Newton School, the story did not stop at words. It moved, expanded, and gathered momentum until it became something much larger than its beginnings.

Working with the whole school, we set out to build a script for the Buckland Newton Literary Festival.

Working with pupils from Musbury Primary School is always fun, and this time around it turned out to be extra exciting! We were expecting our Bank Manager to come with us, but sadly they weren’t able to make it. The class were disappointed that they weren’t able to come and visit them, of course, but when they discovered that the Manager was stuck in a serious predicament, the children from Class 2 rose to the occasion and offered to help. So, we set about writing a clear set of instructions to free our Manager and get him out of a very sticky situation!

Award winning children’s author, Guy Bass, Zoomed into our session at Wadham School to lend his support to a group of aspiring young authors. Over the course of the session, as well as listening to the pupil’s ideas and keeping their enthusiasm up, Guy gave advice ranging from how to build tension and write for a younger readership, through to the joys of editing and why he thinks young readers still love darker stories.

We had a fantastic launch event at Beaminster Books, for our latest publication - “Undreamed Nightmares”. A collection of strange tales, fantastic fiction and barely remembered dreams, the anthology is the culmination of a fiction writing project we undertook with the Year 6 pupils from Beaminster St Marys Academy in Beaminster. There were author signings, readings, speeches and even cups of tea! The pupils deserve to be very proud of what they’ve written, these are great stories.

It looked, for a while, as though Mountjoy School were finally going to meet the Bank Manager… until they rang and informed us that they’d had a bit of an accident and that they were currently dangling 300ft above shark-infested waters. Not only were they not going to make it to the school, but in fact they needed our help to survive!