Youngsters prepared for starting secondary school this year by brushing up on their literacy skills at a unique summer programme.

Discover Story Centre, in High Street, Stratford, has been busy running a summer school for 58 Year Six children from 36 Newham primary schools.

Children were given the opportunity to polish up their literacy, reading and writing skills with over four weeks which were jam-packed with exciting activities to set their imaginations on fire.

Sally Goldsworthy, Discover’s chief executive, said: “This has been a great opportunity to reach children at a very important stage of their educational and social development.

“This summer school has inspired confidence in children that will carry them through to their first term at secondary school.”

The classes were run from Lister Community School in St Mary’s Road, Plaistow.

The children also got to work with poets, published authors, a West Ham football coach, and they went out on day trips to watch a performance of a West End show.

Discover even chartered their own London Routemaster bus to take the children on visits around tourist sites in London.

The events were designed to be fun and engaging to motivate the children to be curious about their surroundings.

When they returned from the trips, they were asked to express their thoughts creatively by writing stories and poems about their experiences and they even got to performn their own shadow puppet show about their adventures.

All of the summer school projects contributed towards the pupils’ Bronze Arts Award, a Level One national qualification, run by Trinity College London and Arts Council England.

The project which is funded and evaluated by the Education Endowment Foundation is designed to improve literacy for children on the cusp of attending secondary school.