BEGIN/END and CREATE Table in single .sql file

Question

I have a small SQL script that I'm executing with Oracle's SQL*Plus to emulate create or replace on tables:

BEGIN
    EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TABLE symbols';
EXCEPTION
    WHEN OTHERS THEN
        IF SQLCODE != -942 THEN
    END IF;
END;
/
CREATE TABLE symbols ( 
            blah blah,
            blah blah,
        );
EXIT;

SQL*Plus commandline is:

sqlplus aegsys15_owner/pass#234@MARVINUAT03 @createSymbolsTable.sql << EOF
> EOF

If I omit the forward slash (/) after END, it seems to only process the first BEGIN/END block, and ignores the CREATE TABLE section underneath. Also, it doesn't print anything help out at all - just connecting/disconnecting:

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Tue Sep 13 15:49:34 2011

Copyright (c) 1982, 2009, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.7.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

 78  Disconnected from Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.1.0.7.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

However, if I do have the forward slash it gives me an error:

    END IF;
    *
ERROR at line 6:
ORA-06550: line 6, column 5:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "END" when expecting one of the following:
( begin case declare exit for goto if loop mod null pragma
raise return select update while with <an identifier>
<a double-quoted delimited-identifier> <a bind variable> <<
continue close current delete fetch lock insert open rollback
savepoint set sql execute commit forall merge pipe purge

CREATE TABLE symbols (
             *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00955: name is already used by an existing object

Firstly, what's the best way of having both the BEGIN/END exception block at the top, and the CREATE TABLE block in the same .sql file?

And secondly, what's some way of getting some helpful output out of SQL*Plus? Each .sql file we run may have multiple CREATE statements (tables, indexes, synonyms etc.). Our ideal output would be something like:

TABLE foo: Pass
SYNONYM bar: Fail
INDEX foo_1: Pass

Not sure if something like that is achievable with SQL or PL/SQL though - happy to write a Bash or Python wrapper script around this, if you guys think that's a better solution.

Cheers, Victor