Monthly Archives: March 2012

A young girl has earned herself a place in a national dance team less than a year after major surgery for a rare heart condition.

Talisha Cooper, eight, was born with a hole in her heart and was monitored with six-monthly scans until last year when paediatric cardiologists at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital advised surgery.

The South Wootton Junior School pupil joined Alison’s Street Dance Club, in South Lynn, when she was just four years old. And as a member of 10s Enigma team, she was still rehearsing for a charity concert three days before a five-and-a-half hour operation.

Talisha was under the care of Graham Derrick, consultant paediatric cardiologist, who greeted her and her parents, Gareth and Keeley, on arrival. He always encouraged Talisha to enjoy her dancing, a passion which probably contributed to her being fast-tracked through recovery after the operation.

The build up to surgery was far more harrowing for her parents who found themselves on

Renowned author David Orme  shares a day in the life of a school bound author….

“Off to Stoke Park Juniors to talk to year 6 about how to plan and write fiction – and not just because SATs are looming!

They were all well taught, and knew about the key elements of fiction: Who? (Characters) when and where? (Setting) and What? (Plot). At this point I asked them which of the three was the most difficult to do, knowing the answer I would get because it’s always the same – the plot!

My job is then to convince them that the plot is really the easy bit – because every story ever written has the same plot. Of course, at this point they look at me as if I’m mad!
Someone somewhere worked out that there are actually seven different plots for stories, but I boil it down to one.

It goes something like this:

1. There is a problem.

2. A character or characters try and solve the problem.

3. They solve it (happy ending) or make it worse (sad e