Blue Peter calls after story in the Standard

Members of The Design Club at Blyton cum Laughton Primary School were featured on the TV programme Blue Peter G130427-8a

A producer on the popular BBC children’s show saw a feature about the school’s innovative design club on the Standard’s website.

And that lead to six children from the club being invited to take part in a special crafty feature on the show.

Assistant headteacher Lorna Batey said the children were ‘thrilled’ to feature in the live broadcast last Thursday afternoon.

“The Standard did a feature about the design club. Then we got a phone call from a producer on Blue Peter who had picked up the story online,” she said.

“They invited the children to go along to the BBC studios in Manchester to take part in the broadcast.”

Live on air the youngsters helped the Blue Peter presenters with the feature - designing and printing T-shirts.

“They were all so excited about it - they came back clutching the T-shirts they made and they are all so proud,” continued Mrs Batey.

“They got to experience a live TV show and find out what goes into a live broadcast.”

“They only found out about four days before that they would be going over to Manchester to take part in the show, and were so excited.”

The show, known for its arts and crafts and make it yourself features, was doing a piece on a brand new technique of T-shirt printing.

And producers thought the creative kids from the design club were the perfect people to help them demonstrate.

“The school started the design club so children could learn about design and what makes good design,” continued Mrs Batey.

The children worked with teachers and parent Iain McDonald, who runs a T-shirt design company called CVC.

Over three sessions the children learned about design, the kind of designs they could put on a T-shirt, positioning for best effect and the best colours to use .

And on the final session they printed their design out on their own T-shirt to keep and take home with them.

The club has been a huge success with around 60 of the school’s 90 pupils having already taken part.

“It has been so popular that we have children who have already taken part putting their names down to do it again,” added Mrs Batey.