Would you believe it? Someone’s only gone and left all their stuff lying around the Bank! We were interrupted while working with a brilliant bunch of Year Threes at Radipole Primary School this week. The Bank Manager had found various items littering his office, chucked around the canteen and even strewn around the vaults themselves! Fortunately, we were able to brighten his mood by working with the classes 3B and 3H to discover just who this forgetful  character was.

Over the past six weeks, we’ve had a great time running a series of podcasting workshops with a brilliant group of Year 9 and 10 students from Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester. Their energy, thoughtfulness, and willingness to dive into new creative territory made the project something truly special.

Once again we got to work with an enthusiastic group of Year 3s from Octopus Class in Beaminster St Mary’s Academy on creating an unforgettable character. The session was packed with imagination, collaboration, and plenty of unexpected twists. Together, the group created the extraordinary Stu-Bart Nitwit — a French human/cat/cyborg hybrid firefighter with a flair for the dramatic.

We were back on the campaign trail again this week - this time in Radipole Primary School in Weymouth, working with an absurdly talented group of Year 4 pupils. There was a power vacuum in the forest - the king was missing, and it was up to us to elect a new leader.

Uh-oh! The King of the jungle has gone missing! Luckily a highly persuasive group of students from Mountjoy School in Beaminster were on hand to help us elect a new leader to unite the jungle community.

This week, the Bridport Arts Centre became a hive of imagination as we got to work with a very talented bunch of young people, running a story-making workshop as part of Laura Eldret’s From and To installation . The exhibition space, which was already alive with Eldret’s themes of exchange, community, and shared experience, proved to be the perfect setting for a session dedicated to creativity and collective storytelling.

This term, we had the absolute joy of partnering with a group of Year 6 students at Beaminster St Mary’s School for an unforgettable journey into the dark woods...

Over the course of six weeks, we worked side-by-side with these eager young authors — igniting ideas, twisting plots, deepening characters, and exploring worlds that teetered between the wondrous and the strange. The result? A dazzling short story anthology: Undreamed Nightmares, a collection of epic tales and weird fiction that hums with humour, chills and pure narrative spark.

BANKFEST returned for its second triumphant year last month. Over three high-energy days, Dorset’s young people met older people (mostly) who make a living with their words: comedy writers, novelists, journalists, game writers, poets, lyricists and so many  more

Codfather & Co, a small British Fish & Chip shop which opened in the 1950s has, through luck, hard graft and shady underworld connections, grown from its humble origins to become a diverse multinational conglomerate with its fins in many pies. It's basically the Amazon of chippies.

This surreal Podcast written and created entirely by our after school podcast club, mixes surreal sketches, weird fiction and 'out-of-this-world-building,' with magazine style articles and heated debates.

Bank staff had a fantastic few days in Sweden last week, attending a conference with some of our sister organisations from around the world. Hosted by the amazing Berättarministeriet , Stockholm, the three day conference brought together a variety of children’s writing charities from three continents to swap ideas, discuss challenges and share inspirational projects.

We were back in Loders Primary School this week to present the children with their copies of the latest in our whole-school poetry anthology series: ‘Environment’.

As our official launch for the book, we brought a brief halt to the school day in order to celebrate their achievement in becoming published poets.

We were back in Shute Primary School this Tuesday, helping the students bring their silliest ideas into reality in our character creation workshop.

Yet again, the Manager rang up to complain that he'd discovered more misplaced items in our vault. We were unsure about who could have left these mystery pieces, so who better to turn to than the brilliant minds of the Year 3s and 4s of Shute Primary School.

For several weeks now, a group of students at Wadham School have been writing original short stories, each one founded on the central theme that all may not be as it seems…  As these stories are speedily approaching completion, it has been helpful for the authors to receive feedback on what they have written so far. So, this Thursday, we invited a panel of Year 5s and 6s from Ashlands Primary School to listen and respond to their work.

We’ve all been there - you stick your arm into the vending machine, hoping to reach your favourite chocolate bar when…whoops! All of a sudden you’re stuck in the machine itself with no way to get out. Classic! So, what do you do? Well, call the pupils from Shute Primary School, that’s what you do.

Travelling the world was never this exciting ! This Thursday saw the culmination of our exciting travel writing project at Salway Ash Primary.

Working over five weeks with a fantastic group of Year 5s , we wrote travelogues that spanned the globe, and even took us to a few fantasy kingdoms as well! We used memories of our own journeys, drama, immersive multi-media and even VR to trot our way around the globe and document our travels.

Last Wednesday, we were lucky enough to return to the Prince of Wales School in Dorchester, working with a very talented bunch of Year 3s on some persuasive speechwriting. We arrived to the terrible news that the Lion, King of the Beasts, had gone missing!