WESTWOOD with Iford School geared up for its scarecrow trail next week with a creative writing workshop on Friday (May 20).

Children's author Maudie Smith joined forces with Year 1-3 pupils to help them create stories and a display that will form part of their scarecrow trail which is from May 28-June 3.

Ms Smith, who showcased her new book, All the King's Tights, was delighted to invited by Friends of Westwood School to the event, which tied with the trail's theme for this year, Children's books old and new.

"Everyone had a great time and the children were really engaged," said Year 2 & 3 teacher Sally Hannam. "She was impressed by their inventiveness and said she may even use an idea of theirs for her next book.

"She talked about how she got inspired from a young age which was really useful and some of the kids said they would go home and write a story about their scarecrow over the weekend. We will follow it up and hopefully build on that creativity this week."

Ms Smith said: "As a children's author there's nothing better than meeting the audience you are writing for. I never fail to be amazed by the fertile imaginations of this age group. When they got down to designing their own scarecrows and I reckon there were some fantastic scarecrow stories in the making." 

Headteacher Ian Rockey said: "It was a huge success and the children had a wonderful morning. From what I saw it was clear to see they were enthralled by it all which is great."

For more information about the trail visit http://www.westwoodnursery.org/scarecrow-trail