Wilberfoss Primary School

Wonderful displays are found all through the school, here’s a recent one from Year 4 celebrating their work on the Rainforests….

Every June Wilberfoss Primary School holds a special creative arts week. Every class does something special, there’s glue, paper, pens, paper, and much more flying around, the school becomes even more of a hive of creativity than usual.

Here’s a little of what’s been going on… Year 4 are having a blast making Gaudi pieces, including their own version of Gaudi’s el dracfrom the Parc Guell, a giant salamander….

Zoolab came in to visit Year 3 and 4 to show them just a few of the animals that they’ve been looking at in their Rain Forest topic.

Lots of fun!

More pics at the school website – School Events section.

Year 4 are currently undertaking a project on the Rainforests. This involves lots of different work across the curriculum areas including looking at the work of Henri Rousseau.

Using the interactive art program JUNGLE at the Washington National Gallery Of Art our children made some wonderful images for their project, of which we’ve put a selection below on the blog. For more – see the website.

(Oliver)

(William)

(Ella / Lily)

(Isaac / Victor)

(Jennifer / Phoebe)

(Kyle)

(Layla / Aliya)

(Mattie / Ella)

(Mollie / Katie)

Missed this last half term, but here’s the wonderful Year 4 corridor display for their ICT repeated patterns and images work…. DRAGONS!

Year 3 and 4 are exploring the exciting world of dragons in their latest topic for this half term.

Which means they got to dress up, make lots of dragon art, listen to dragon stories and generally have a great time on their Dragon topic launch day….

Year 4 looked at the work of L.S. Lowry as part of their recent Charlie & The Chocolate Factory topic, and these displays show just how much they enjoyed the topic….

Great, great show this year – congratulations to all those who took part!

Thanks to Mr Wragg for the photos!

Gum Girl Volume 1 – Catastrophe Calling

By Andi Watson

Gum Girl is the new series by Andi Watson, an artist whose Glister books have been really popular in the school library.

Walker Books and Andi were kind enough to donate some copies for the school library, but before they go on the shelves we handed them out to some very keen pupils…. and they certainly seemed to like them!

Review by Holly (Year 5)

I loved Gum Girl, it’s a really good book, in fact it’s not good, it’s absolutely amazing!

When Catastrophe calls, it’s Gum Girl’s time to shine. Grace Gibson is the new girl with one very big secret … there’s a new heroine in town and she can well stick to the bad guys!

Review by James (Year 6)

I liked this book; it’s all about a girl moving to a new town with a new school and new problems!

Grace Gibson looks normal on the outside, but she manages to create some super-gum which comes in useful as she needs to save herself countless times!

There are three stories in Gum Girl Catastrophe Calling but my favourite is the first where she starts at Calamity Primary School and meets a boy called Billy Fisher, who always gets picked on. But the school bully at Calamity happens to be a giant super-robot!

Then there’s the evil genius little Nigel Lott who wants to get rid of Gum Girl because she saved the town from his robot of destruction. In fact, by the end of the book there’s a whole Evil Geniuses After-School Club. That’s just the sort of school Grace has found herself in!

I would definitely recommend this book to adventure lovers!

(School bullies with a difference at Clamity Primary School)

Review by Lucy (Year 6)

Grace has moved from a small calm town, to a catastrophic city packed with calamity! And if that wasn’t bad enough, her dad is the headmaster at her new school!

Things turn from bad to worse when Grace finds an old chemistry set in the new house. Unpacking or fiddling with the chemistry set…. oh … Grace chooses the chemistry set. And the explosive chemical reaction creates GUM GIRL!!

I liked Gum Girl because it has a fun, quirky storyline which people of all ages will enjoy. It was really clear, and each character felt like they could be real. I also liked the graphics and the jokes that Andi Watson puts through the book.

It’s an amazing graphic novel and I’d give it 10 out of 10.

(Oh dear…. the origins of Gum Girl!)

Review by Mae (Year 4)

At her new house, Grace Gibson plays with an old chemistry set she has found, but the glowing green contents explode everywhere, including on her gum.  Later on, when she goes to the shopping centre with her “friends”, chaos break loose; a meteor crashes down to Earth, a robot attacks the shop, and Grace is nearly run over by an out of control bright pink bin lorry. The gum she’s chewing, that was covered in the chemicals from the experiment, saves her from first the bin lorry and then the huge meteor. Grace realises what’s happened and after doing more experiments becomes Gum Girl!

I liked it because it has a lot of adventures in it whilst also having a bit of friendship. My favourite part was when Grace’s hair went very, very wrong and she looked so funny.

I think you should read this book, it is full of surprises and laughs.

(Grace Gibson, AKA Gum Girl is definitely having a bad hair day!)

Thanks once again to Walker Books and Andi for the books. They’re going in the library after Easter!

After Daniel, Ailie, and Emily reviewed (and thoroughly enjoyed – see their review) The Boss, we arranged for some of Year 6 to send John and Patrice Aggs some email questions, just as we did with James Turner and The Etherington Brothers.

Thanks very much to Daniel, Ailie, Emily, Joel, and Rosie for the questions, Lauren at Random House for setting up the interview and of course, thanks to John and Patrice Aggs for taking the time to answer the questions!

(Some of those “tricky things” John Aggs wrote for his mother Patrice Aggs)

Rosie: How long did it take to make the book?

Patrice: It seemed like years. But that was mainly the planning. Once John and I had worked out the storyboard part it was only two or three days per page. Plus a lot of time for arguing about what everything looked like!

John: It took mum ages to draw! This is one of the best parts of being a writer. You write all these tricky things to draw and then you can get someone else to make it look cool!

Daniel: How long did it take to write the book?

Patrice: If you count the months of throwing ideas back and forth….actually John had better answer this one!

John: Oh, this is a tricky one. I don’t sit down and write a whole book at once. There’s a lot of putting it aside and doing something else, then returning to it for fresh ideas. The Boss has been rattling around in my head for a while now, in various forms. I was going to make it a comic for adults, but adults are boring.

Joel: What inspired you to write and draw comics?

Patrice: I started writing and drawing comics when I was four. I can’t remember why — it seemed just as normal a thing to do as eating and sleeping. Haven’t stopped yet.

John: Mum had a LOT of comics when I was small. Now she has even more. You have no idea how many comics there are in her house. Seriously, she should really get rid of some.

(A lesson to all – keep your eyes open and the ideas will come! John Aggs turned a boring stop at a service station into the start of The Boss)

Rosie: How do you come up with the ideas?

Patrice: John is the Ideas Man. I just jump up and down while he’s explaining the story, and say Wow! I can’t wait to draw that!

John: I dunno, I just keep my eyes open. The Boss starts in a horrible motorway service station I was stuck in once. I was watching these two guys and they looked like villains to me. Sometimes a place or a person can spark a whole big story. I get very excited and think it’s awesome, then the next day I realise it was actually a pretty good idea, but a terrible story. That’s when I have to sit down and make it into something worth reading!

Daniel: What inspired The Boss?

Patrice: I think there was a story John made up when he was at school that turned into The Boss. We talked a lot about the idea when we were on a family holiday and I finally persuaded John to write it all down properly so we could make the comic.

John: Yeah, I always liked the idea of a class of schoolkids ALL solving a crime. Books always have a team of five, or three, or seven- because it’s hard to keep track of all the names. In a comic we can have loads, because you just
need to remember what they look like!

Joel: Did you ever fall out whilst working on the book (I know I’d fall out with my mom if I worked with her on anything! (Hi Mom)

Patrice: You be nice to your mom! John is always nice to me (not). We are the kind of people who shout at each other a lot, but that doesn’t mean we fall out! The shouting is really important, because that’s when you get to look at all the ideas and problems from all kinds of different angles. John’s dad and sister are really nice, quiet, non-shouty people, and they just roll their eyes at John and I when we start yelling. I love it.

John: Yeah, we don’t really fall out, but there are lots of erm… “healthy discussions”. Mostly when mum wants to know what a certain character or place should look like and I don’t know what they should look like. We have a bunch of arguments about whose job it is to come up with ideas. This is good, I think!

(The Boss = John Aggs? He says no, his mum says yes!)

Emily & Ailie: Is the Boss based on anyone you know?

Patrice: John IS The Boss. He’s the oldest in our family and spent lots of summer holidays bossing around his young sister and their cousins. I even got him a t-shirt that said “The Boss’ on it! He organised all the family games and theatrical performances. They were called “Cousins Productions”, and the grownups were the audience.

John: Thanks a lot mum. Just for that I’m going to bring up that time you were crowdsurfing at my sister’s punk-rock show. I’m NOT the boss! Whenever I write a boy character mum always draws it as me, aged 12.

Joel: Did you model your characters in The Boss after someone you know?

Patrice: John knew what and who all the characters needed to be, and there’s bits of a lot of people in there. Once I’ve drawn them they become totally real to me, and have lives of their own.

John: Not really. At the writing stage I wanted a different personality for each character. Each character also had to be suited to their crime-solving job. Actually basing characters on real people and getting them to work well in a simple story is really tricky. That said, once they’ve been created for their purpose, the characters grow and change into their own personalities as I write and mum draws. But no, they weren’t based on anyone really.

(The Boss Volume 2 – The mystery of the disappearing dogs perhaps? We all certainly hope so)

Emily and Ailie: Are there going to be any more books about The Boss? – you seem to have set up the possibility with going to make a story about the missing dogs at the end of The Boss?

Patrice: The missing dogs story is a really fast-paced one. All we’ve got to do is find time to finish it. I love drawing dogs. They sometimes have such human expressions on their faces.

John: I have loads more stories for the Boss, and more of the class to introduce! Mum’s right- we need to find the time and convince someone to pay loads of money to print another book!

Daniel: Do you think there might be a series of Boss books?

Patrice: I certainly hope so!! There are so many cool adventures those schoolkids could have!

John: It would be cool. I just remembered that the bad guys in the book were supposed to be working for someone. We left it open for the possibility of an arch-villain behind it all. To be honest I only just remembered that now! I’d just want to write more of the class solving crimes.

Emily & Ailie: Would you think about doing another mystery series?

Patrice: We’re working on one right now! Check out the Phoenix Comic for further news about when it starts. The setting is going to be London, with lots of action.

John: Hey! Shhhh! I’m still writing my next mystery series. It’s a a bit more like a spy story, but still with lots of tailing people and kids doing cool things.

(Not the next series from John and Patrice, but Patrice Aggs does contribute “What Will Happen Next?” to The Phoenix Comic – issue 1 out in January!)

Thanks to the children at school for asking such great questions, thanks to John and Patrice Aggs for answering them, and thanks to all those involved at Random House and The DFC Library for setting these up, especially Lauren Bennett. More interviewing from the children at school in 2012!