We are delighted that all our hard work has paid off and we have achieved Gold accreditation as a Reading School.
Reading Schools is an initiative run by the Scottish Book Trust, in conjunction with the Scottish Government. To achieve our accreditation, we have implemented a variety of successful reading initiatives over the past year, including:
We planned, filmed, directed and edited a fun video to launch our initiative. This starred staff and pupils performing a parody of "All about the Bass", entitled "All about Those Books". We shared this at assemblies and via Twitter and our message reached the entire community, with over 3000 views on Twitter.
Our senior pupils were then trained in the "Scotland Reads" method and used these skills to help develop the reading confidence of a targeted group of S1 pupils every morning during "Paired Reading" sessions. Not only did they support our pupils, but they also went out into the community to support others with reading. They visited a local primary school and a local nursery every week to help with reading. They also visited the local care home to read to residents and share stories with them.
We organised and ran a range of reading competitions in our school including reading poses, book spine poetry and mystery reader competitions. This created a buzz about reading across the school and engaged pupils in new and innovative ways. We organised a range of author events, including family workshops, talks, storytelling, poetry recitals and "Authors Live" events. This allowed our pupils to engage with real authors, including Fergus MacNicol the storyteller, Cat Hepburn the performance poet and Jonathan Meres the author.
We regularly recorded and shared reading podcasts with our local community. Our junior pupils learned how to use the recording equipment and were frequently seen around the school recording items for our podcasts. These can be accessed via SoundCloud so that the whole community can benefit.
We are delighted to have been named first "Reading School" in Scotland as it recognises the huge amount work we have done to build a successful reading culture and to build effective and sustainable partnerships in our community.
