Elves’ antics thrill Amble Primary School pupils

Bricking up the school entrance, filling the headteacher’s office with balls and pinching a lifeboat are just some of the cheeky antics of a school’s naughty elves.

Since 2019, elf toys have been “making mischief” at Amble Links Primary School in Northumberland, with the help of the local community.

Head Paul Heeley said the school had “quite a following now” on social media, adding: “When the school’s mentioned, people say, ‘oh, is that the school with the elves?'”

He said you could hear the anticipation from students as they came up the hill in the morning, asking: “Where the elves? What the elves doing? What have they done?”

The Elf on the Shelf might have been a US import, but it has taken off in the UK over the past decade, with some children waking up to find toy elves had caused trouble overnight.

“These elves aren’t your normal elves that you see on most social media, they do quite large-scale things,” Mr Heeley said.

Over the years, local businesses got involved, along with the council and emergency services, all in their own time, Mr Heeley said.

The elves once got a herd of sheep to block the school entrance, pulled down a lamp-post, and when they were caught in student’s makeshift “elf traps”, escaped from a recycling centre.

Mr Heeley said: “As it’s grown, there’s just been so much community involvement, which has been tremendous.”

A small group of people help plan the scenarios during the year.

“It does involve some very, very early mornings for people involved as it’s trying to have things ready for when the breakfast club children start coming in,” Mr Heeley said.

He said the scenes were cleared away as the school day started, to avoid disruption.

Mr Heeley said some people had wanted to donate to the school after being thrilled by the elves’ antics.

Funds raised had been spent on things like Chromebook computers for the students, he said.

Mr Heeley said he loved doing the project every year.

“It’s that joy that it brings to them [the children], it’s memories for them,” he said.