October saw the annual Hastings Storytelling Festival taking place. Throughout the week, an extensive programme of activities took place, involving visiting authors, creative workshops and a big parade along Hastings seafront at the end of the week.
As always, Beckley School were very involved with this excellent festival. On Tuesday 19th October, our Key Stage 2 classes were fortunate to have a visit from internationally best-selling author, Thomas Taylor. He has written a series of children’s books, loosely based around Hastings and his most popular book ‘Malamander’ is being turned into a major Hollywood film in the next twelve months.
Thomas also illustrated the original cover for the first J K Rowling’s first book in the Harry Potter series, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’. 
It was a fascinating opportunity for our older pupils to gain an insight into the process that an author goes through when writing a book, and it certainly inspired many of the children!
The school also took part in the Festival Parade at the end of the week, where local schools were asked to make a model or a piece of art work based upon a favourite character from a Roald Dahl book. Our amazing Acorns staff made the most wonderful model of Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant – the BFG. We were asked to lead the parade, wheeling our BFG all along the parade route, with our pupils carrying the BFG’s favourite ‘food’ – snozcumbers! It was a wonderful end to the festival and the Beckley pupils, parents and staff attending all had a great time!