It’s not every day that you get to learn complete nonsense at school. But that’s exactly what 20 lucky Year 6s did at St Anselm’s School in Harrow: The author Verna Wilkins read Edward Lear’s poetry book Complete Nonsense with the class, and inspired them to write their own hilarious rhymes. See their work below.

The children worked with Verna for six sessions, learning how picture books are written, laid out, illustrated and edited. Verna brought in works in progress marked with red corrections and illustrated with rough, thumbnail sketches. The sessions demystified the process of how a book is made. The children became authors themselves, taking their own writing from an initial idea to a finished product. They completed the sessions by performing their work to an appreciative audience of reception children.