A teacher spends 70 hours making Shrek hats for all her pupils to celebrate their return to school.

Listen to BBC Radio Devon commentary as Boreham Wood host Torquay United in the National League.

Durham re-sign Australian Cameron Bancroft for the 2021 County Championship campaign.

With only 10 games to go for most Premier League teams until the end of the season, you predicted where you think each side will finish in the table come May.

Charlie Wyke scores as Sunderland beat under-pressure Kenny Jackett's Portsmouth to move two points off League One's top two.

Hartlepool move up to second in the National League table after taking a point at Altrincham with 10 men.

Rainbows and thank you NHS signs are being painted on roads across South Tyneside.

A total of 18 rainbow roads are being created close to healthcare services in South Shields, Jarrow and Hebburn, as well as in Cleadon, Boldon Village and Whitburn.

Image source, South Tyneside council

A number will also be painted on the approach roads to South Tyneside District Hospital.

It's hoped the gesture from South Tyneside Council will boost the morale of NHS staff and show the borough's gratitude.

The Bondgate Tower in Alnwick has been closed again for three weeks after it was damaged by a driver who didn’t report the incident.

It’s the latest in a number of crashes into the Grade I listed structure, leading some to call for it to be closed to traffic permanently.

Bondgate Tower dates from the Middle Ages and has stood at the end of Alnwick marketplace since about 1450.

It was closed for a week last year when it was hit by a vehicle.

BBC Look North
North East and Cumbria

Trainee doctors have been getting valuable experience and freeing up qualified doctors to do other work by helping out at vaccination centres in the region.

The national programme has placed unprecedented demand on local health services in recent weeks.

At the vaccination centre in a North Shields sports hall, 50 students from Newcastle University have been helping to ease the pressure, by administering jabs.

One of them is Miranda Clarke (pictured below), who said: "The first person I vaccinated was 103 years old and he'd survived the Spanish Flu, he was born in 1917 and it was just amazing to have a five-minute conversation with him, and these are lives and people and memories that I definitely won't forget."

Ollie Kirby (pictured below) is a fourth-year medical student who works two days a week at the vaccination centre. He said: "In this situation we are directly helping out, we are a tangible benefit to services.

"It's a hugely valuable opportunity to us to meet them, to explore what their concerns or fears might be about the process and go some way to address those, give reassurance and administer the vaccine."

Middlesbrough defender Anfernee Dijksteel will miss the rest of the Championship season with an ankle injury.

A woman creates sand art after being inspired by a visit from a humpback whale in Northumberland.

All three Welsh sides in the European Challenge Cup will face English opposition in the last 16.

Two men have been arrested after police found three machetes, two axes and drugs with a street value of £12,000 in raids on two addresses in Sunderland.

Police say the raids last week at High Street East and Tower Street West were part of an investigation into violent crime called Operation Sentinel.

Image source, Northumbria Police

A 28-year-old man was arrested at High Street East after officers found £8,000 worth of cocaine along with various drug equipment.

A 29-year-old man was arrested the next day at Tower Street West where £4,000 worth of amphetamine and cannabis were seized, as well as more than a dozen weapons (pictured above) including an air rifle, crossbow, knife and BB gun.

The pair have been released while investigations continue.

Image source, Northumbria Police

BBC Sport

The daughter of former Middlesbrough coach Gordon McQueen, who was recently diagnosed with vascular dementia, wants the law surrounding certain aspects of football changed.

Hayley McQueen has been speaking for the first time, since her dad's diagnosis.

A parliamentary inquiry into the link between sport and long-term brain injury starts today.

Image source, PA Media

Hayley said her family wants to raise awareness about the dangers of heading a football, saying: "I think that the government is getting involved is massive, it's just almost criminal it's taken so many high-profile deaths for this to be dealt with at the highest level.

"Football may change as a result of it, but so what if it's changing peoples lives and their futures, does it really matter?

"Why not just bring in a limit on heading a football not just at youth level but at professional level as well."

A planned upgrade at Middlesbrough's Teessaurus Park includes making sculptures "roar" at visitors.

A warning about illicit drugs was made when Stephanie Sillifant and three others died in one weekend.

A cannabis farm, which police believe could be worth more than £500,000, was found on a residential street in Middlesbrough after an anonymous tip-off.

In total 112 well-established cannabis plants and a further 500 seedlings were found at the house on Kildare Street this morning.

Police say overall the farm could be worth up to £514,000 and say as well as the plants, they discovered wiring at the house which posed a serious fire risk.

Image source, Cleveland Police

No arrests have been made and police say investigations are continuing.

The bus travels to Newcastle communities who cannot get to vaccination centres or where uptake is low.

Billy Welch says the more people get vaccinated, the sooner events like Appleby Horse Fair can resume.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
James Harrison

Staff at New Silksworth Academy in Sunderland have been given care packages to say thank you, as children return to schools.

The packs include chocolate, sweets, paracetamol and toiletries.

Silksworth councillor Phil Tye, who handed out the gifts, said: “You’re basically going back to the beginning with them and the staff are going to have an uphill battle.

“So this is just to say thank you for what they’ve all done so far and that we’re behind them all the way.”

The packs were put together with the help of Youth Almighty, an outreach organisation working in West Sunderland.