Children put their survival skills to the test, with some help from the Royal Marines.

About 70 Year 6 pupils from across the Acorn Multi-Academy Trust came together at Thorncombe St Mary's Primary School for an overnight camp with Royal Marines from Elite Commando Survival.

The camp was organised by Marshwood Primary headteacher, Luke Owen, as part of Acorn's enhanced transition for pupils heading to secondary school. During the camp, children completed a variety of tasks, such as casualty extraction drills, assault courses, traversing wide expanses, constructing viaducts to transport water, shooting, campfire lighting, hiking and most challenging of all assembling their overnight tents.

Mr Owen said: "The activities were designed to be both challenging and fun, while promoting a host of like skills, including: focus, cooperation, physical fitness, navigation, communication, resilience and team-work amongst the children. We believe that all of these skills will not only serve them well at secondary school in September but for years to come, with each skill a hallmark of success and the Royal Marines."

It's been a fun-filled few weeks for pupils at the academy.

Marshwood held its annual sports day at the end of term, when families and the community turned out in force to cheer on the children. Having postponed the original event, the children and crowd were blessed with some incredible weather which made for a great afternoon of sports. Everyone was treated to some racing, with determination, team-work and resilience shown by all athletes. After the final 'Marshwood mile', the scores were collated while the children enjoyed a refreshing ice cream courtesy of West Bay ice creams.

The yellow team went on to retain the sports day shield.

Pippin class at Thorncombe St Mary's recently joined forces with the Little Pips Pre-school for an amazing visit from Nick Waddam from Bugfest. His hands-on presentation was part of the children's topic on mini-beasts and consisted of the children getting up close and personal with various creatures.

These included stick insects, millipedes, spiders, cockroaches and an African land snail. Following the visit, the children created their own bug poetry books, which they shared with their families at a celebration worship.