What to do about the teachers?
When the Glenzier pupils drew maps of the island earlier in the project, one of them clearly showed a small rocky island, labelled 'teachers'. (The same pupil had the idea that the whole situation might have been set up by the teachers, now waiting and watching in a nearby tree, to see how the children got on!) This stranding of the teachers was a brilliant story idea, meaning no-one had to die, and giving us the chance to see how responsible the children would be about their elders. We discussed this, and decided something had to be done.

We had some fun using storyboards to sketch out how they would rescue the grown-ups and what might go wrong along the way. They also wrote about and drew the state of the teachers. The descriptions in Chapter 6 have included many of their words.

We also looked ahead to the final resolution and ending of the story in Chapter 7. Two of the storyboards had a ship appearing at the end of Chapter 6. But this raised the question of whether the island chidren would want to be rescued at all! Our pupils may have been thinking too much on behalf of the older, more able, children but they weren't altogether happy about them having to leave. They wrote Jessie's thoughts as she started the journey home - reflections on the adventure and on how some of the characters have changed and grown. This was good both from the story-writing point of view, but also an important reflection on the effects of a learning experience. More in Chapter 7!