Monday 15th June

Good day to our wonderful community. Did you all have a good weekend? I hope so. What did you get up to? I went for a walk around a park in my local area, one that I had not previously visited - there was a small pond and there were some very cute little chicks. I believe they were baby Moorhens.

Talking of babies, I have some fabulous news for you all. Miss Best had a baby boy on Saturday night, Zachary Alex, he weighed 6ib 9oz and both mum and baby are doing well. I am sure you will all join me in congratulating Miss Best and her partner on the birth of their son. You are going to make a fantastic mummy Miss Best!

Have you ever spoken to your home grown-ups about what you were like as a baby? Do you know what time you were born? How much weighed? There are lots of questions I would like to ask my parents when I next see them about what I was like as a baby. I wonder what my first word was? How old I was when I started to walk? Maybe, you could find out about your life as a young baby and start to write your autobiography.

An autobiography is an account of a person’s life written by that person. It is written in the first person and provides lots of details about their life to interest the reader. Lots of famous people write autobiographies, perhaps you have seen them for sale in the shops or on the shelves of a library.

Boy: Tales of Childhood is an autobiographical book written by Roald Dahl. The book describes his life from birth until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, the school system at the time, and how his childhood experiences led him to writing as a career. I have read it many times, both as a child and as an adult, and I really enjoy it. It was first published in 1984 (when I was two-years-old, I certainly didn’t read it at that age) and is described as a funny, insightful and at times grotesque glimpse into the early life of Roald Dahl. Here is an extract from the book:

‘It was always a surprise to me that I was good at games. It was an even greater surprise that I was exceptionally good at two of them: one called fives, the other, squash-racquets. Fives, which many of you will know nothing about, was taken seriously at Repton and we had a dozen massive glass-roofed fives courts always in perfect condition.’

When I was class teacher in year six, one of the units of writing I used to teach was autobiographical writing and I loved it! The children would have to do lots of interviews at home about their early life, and then we would turn it into a humorous piece of writing. It always made us laugh, lots. Of course, because we wanted to make the audience laugh, we would exaggerate some parts of their life stories and embellish a few details. I can remember one child saying that he had a red face when he was born, so that was then described as him looking like a tomato and his mum wondering whether she should hug him or eat him!

We would love to read extracts from your own autobiography - remember to make them funny. Email us at children@olive.dudley.sch.uk.

We miss you. Stay safe.