There’s a time machine in the lab at St Barnabas School, created by Mortimer Keene. Mr Bevan, the teacher, is very nervous of it, even though Mortimer tries to reassure him. His anxiety is well founded, for soon the machine is switched on, by accident, of course! The school enters a vortex and is sent back to the time of the dinosaurs.

Basil Brontosaurus doesn’t like playschool as the other dinosaurs tease him. Then he discovers a secret that makes him special but also lands him in trouble.

The first in a really popular series of books about Mildred Hubble who is at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches. She’s not the star pupil—she makes a mess of her spells and crashes her broomstick—but her adventures make great reading!

It’s Patagonia Clutterbottom’s birthday and the children at Pirate School are looking forward to a party—but so are the children at the School for Highwaymen. There’s bound to be trouble . . .

Such a popular book, especially since the wonderful musical. The clever Matilda and the dreadful Miss Trunchbull, who throws children about whenever she feels like it, are brilliantly drawn characters. Every new generation will delight in this story.

Groosham Grange is a school for witchcraft, and among the staff are a vampire, a werewolf, a dwarf, and a two-headed headmaster (all this long before Harry Potter!). Hilariously funny and exciting as David seeks to escape before the initiation ceremony.

Perhaps not really a school story although it does begin with a boy running away from boarding school. The book tells a magical story, both happy and sad, about a boy and a white lion cub.

The stories of Wayside School, thirty storeys high, with no nineteenth floor and one classroom per floor, is told in thirty short chapters. Quite American but very accessible and lots of fun.

The first book in the series about the world-famous boy magician, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a good one to introduce to older readers in this age group, who could just get hooked

Dinah knows something is wrong with her new school when she sees pupils in the playground chanting times tables and asking each other test questions. A poster proclaims ‘The man who can keep order can rule the world.’ Soon she meets the terrifying demon headmaster, and his chilling plans start to become clear.

4C’s science project is ‘Flour Babies’: each pupil in 4C must treat a six-pound bag of flour as if it were a baby and look after it constantly. Simon gets involved in something at school for the first time, and becomes attached to his baby. Riotously funny and very moving.

Greg has a new diary and is keen to put the past behind him, but how can he keep his brother Roderick quiet and make it through another year? Very popular, as are all the books in the series.

Ribblestrop is the strangest school imaginable, and the visionary headmaster is out of his depth with the clever, crazy, needy group of individual pupils who come to the school. Catastrophes, comedy, nightmares, and a rip-roaring pace make this book just too good to miss.

Still hugely appealing reads, making many children wish they’d gone to Hogwarts School. The books are fresh and exciting for each new group of children.