Early in the Spring Term strange things began to happen in our school grounds. It all started when Mrs. Houghton came into assembly and told us that she had found a large white tooth by the pond in the forest.  She told us all that the area seemed disturbed. No-one knew what kind of creature could have a tooth so large.
 

The next week large footprints were found in the mud, closely followed by a claw, a large scale, and some half-eaten fish.
 
Excitement was building around school and all the clues suggested that there was some sort of monster in our pond. Mr. Brannen announced a whole school competition to write a character description of the monster based on the clues. We all got writing, and our school governors chose the winners.

In the Foundation Stage, the monster also inspired children’s child initiated writing. In KS1 children wrote stories about the monster in our pond and instructions for capturing a pond monster. Children in Year 3 and 4 wrote poems about the monster, non-chronological reports and then used the monster as stimulus for writing myths. Newspaper reports were written in Year 5 and 6 as well as persuasive writing and information texts.

Just before the Easter Holidays, the creature was spotted in the pond!

Mr. Brannen then revealed that the pond monster did exist but had been created by Mr. Sharpe. We were all secretly relieved.