Children in the reception class at All Cannings Primary School have been given a head start in their reading with the creation of story sacks.

The beautifully decorated sacks, 25 of them, containing dressing up clothes, puppets and other items relevant to a particular story, have been created by teacher Lindsey Wallace.

Mrs Wallace said: “I made all the sacks but we’ve had a team of parents working together to fill them with items relevant to the book that’s in each sack.

“For example, for The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we’ve got information on the life cycle of butterflies, a book about insects and other things. Some of the subjects haven’t been quite so straightforward so we got together and worked out what could go in.

“There is nothing new about story sacks and we were looking to buy some, but they sell at £50 or £60 each so we thought we would make our own.

“We have scoured charity shops and car boot sales for things to go in them and we brought them into school this week. It was like Christmas. The children will be able to borrow the sacks for two weeks and work with their parents on reading and using the items in the sack.

“It is a way of stimulating their reading activities and it will be interesting to see how it takes off.”