Burnley primary school pupils become crime-fighters on World Book Day

St James's Lanehead CE pupils received a message from a police officer to say that several nefarious characters had escaped from some books and had entered their school.

The suspects, including Bill Sykes from "Oliver Twist", left lots of pieces of evidence around and made quite a mess in some classrooms.

In response, the pupils became detectives and used the clues alongside some witness statements to identify who the main suspects were. They then presented their findings to real-life Burnley PCSOs Mark and Alex at the end of the day.

The community support officers collected the evidence, took it away over the weekend and returned to school the following to tell each class who the characters were and from which books.

Parents and families were also welcomed into school to look at some of the evidence and to help their children to investigate the crime.

Mrs Hannah Gregory, head of English, said: "On World Book Day our children all came dressed up as a word. We had some very ambitious vocabulary and creative costumes, which created excellent discussions throughout the day. A fabulous day was had by all."