A PRIMARY school teacher used her Covid isolation period to write and publish her own children’s book with characters based on the youngsters in her class.

Hannah Whitbourn, a reception teacher at Heycroft Primary School in Eastwood, wrote a book with a series of stories that children in her reception class could read.

It is aimed at early readers and focuses on a number of phonetic stories.

She even decided to name the book after her class, the Ladybird Class, and used ladybirds as the main characters within the stories.

Miss Whitbourn said: “My book is designed so that children in the first stages of reading can read it themselves.

“I had the idea because I noticed that, in the early stages where books are very simple and there isn’t much depth to the storyline, that children in my year group were becoming a bit disinterested in having the same book to read over again.

“I thought it would be great to have one book, that had several stories, so that once they’d mastered one, they had many more to move on too.

“My class are called the Ladybird Class so I decided to make the main characters ladybirds too as I know they would love it.”

Echo: Children's book - Writer Hannah Whitbourn.Children's book - Writer Hannah Whitbourn.

Miss Whitbourn, who lives in Leigh, first tested positive for Covid on January 3.

Wanting to turn a negative situation into a positive, she used the time to put the book together.

Hannah wrote, illustrated, and published the book herself.

She added: “Once I was feeling better, I wanted to find a good project and I knew writing this book would not only be valuable for the children but a challenge too.

“I love writing and it is something I had thought about doing before, and although it was hard at times to think of ideas that would make it both accessible and enjoyable for children, it was amazing, surreal and enjoyable to do.”

Hannah’s book is now available to purchase on Amazon at www.amzn.to/3GO0Uss.