So, dear reader as you know each year for the past *coughs* number of years I have been running BIG projects with Woodfarm High and St.Ninian’s . This year I chose to include 60 pupils for my madness ion the scheme. Our focus has been the brilliant novel The Everest Files by Matt Dickinson and our end point will be playable board games based on the themes and ideas from the novel.

In the spirit of festive cheer and because the pupils have been working very hard I thought a wee coming together of the masses might be in order. Those of you who know the library will know that this is no mean feat as we are compact and bijou to say the least. However, nothing ventured and all that the scene was set for what shall go down in the annals of the school’s history as and I quote ” a bit crazy but great fun”.

Higgins’ Hairy Horrors and Beaton’s Beastly Baddies; as the classes were renamed, streamed in to the library to await their fate.
First on the cards was the bobble hat challenge- well warned each pupil was told to bobble up for the event – points were awarded and the horrors edged it with 22 bobblers versus 19 from the baddies.

We jogged on to round one – Avalanche Bingo – tensions were running high as sweaty paws grabbed bingo dabbers to cross off their Chumulungmas and their ice-axes… top scores went to the Baddies.

Our next activity included 3 pupils from each team plus a special guest – Olaf from Frozen for a surreal experience of pin the tail on the yeti!

There was a dizzying array of misplaced tails and it was Lucia who triumphed with a very near miss! 5 points to the horrors.

The most complicated and most dangerous game of all came next .. rescue the baby from Everest. For some reason a group of tiny babies ( jelly- not real) had been trapped at the top of Everest and it was up to 6 pupils from each team , wearing very large gloved and only using soup spoons to get them back down (luckily enough most real expeditions are better equipped). Time was not on our groups’ side and we are sad to report that there was a jelly fatality… more training I think would be needed if we were ever to put this into practice in the real world.

3 steady handed individuals and one teacher per class were invited to throw snowballs into a cup because that’s how we roll- and roll they did all over the floor – with each team scoring as they say in Eurovision Nil Point… for shame!

Our final events ran simultaneously- two intrepid explorers had to show their balancing skill by keeping rather large marshmallows on their head whilst groups of pupils with no skill ( it later transpired) tried to build their own Everests out of playing cards.
Well done to the balancing girls who did not drop their mallows .. um not much to say about the other group other than sometimes it’s the taking part that counts…
Amazingly after I had added up all the cores and then thrown them all away – both teams had won!.
yay sweeties and hoorays all round.


Thank you so much to all my brilliant pupils and a special thanks to Miss Beaton and Miss Higgins for letting me loose with the madness on what may be my last Christmas at St.Ninian’s after 20 years…