Rosebank Primary School came up with a really original and inclusive way of making sure everyone focused on reading and books without a prohibitive cost to parents - the school decided to run a Reading Book Camp, complete with reading stations in wicker tents, a ‘camp fire’, smores, camping crafts and lots and lots of books. Head Teacher Jennifer Heffell described how she and staff redesigned their celebration:
“We thought, how can we do something different, and we came up with the idea of the camp out. We wanted to set up something that was not just about books but takes books to another level. So there’s lots of stalls set up, we’re looking at digital work, we’re talking about campfire songs. We’re trying to take literacy to a different level, so that it’s not just about buying a book.”
Teachers dressed up as children’s books baddies and the children could guess who they were. But there was no pressure at all for the children to dress up themselves. In fact the school has, as Jennifer describes it “come on a bit of a journey” on this with parents, as in previous years there had been some parental pushback on the school’s efforts to discourage dressing up to take the pressure off family budgets.
“Initially the first year of us paring it back parents were disappointed, cause I think some of them had planned outfits. But they get it now and they’ve really embraced all of the cost of the school day things that we try here in the school.”
Families really appreciate how had the school has worked to make their events free and open to all, and this event was really well attended by mums, dads and grandparents:
“Felt really good. There’s a lot of pressure, you can go into Tescos and see all the costumes. If you’ve got more than one child it can be more than one costume. So there was no pressure today, you could just come along and enjoy the day.”
“All the events are always busy and jam packed, and if you’re not there first, you’re not getting a seat!”
“I love this school, I love what they do, I love how accessible everything is in this school, it’s amazing!”
Downfield Primary School put on a week of events centred around two ‘reading tents’ to make sure everyone had the chance to enjoy books with their friends. The book tents were available to everyone. A pupil told us that:
“There’s bean bags and chairs and that, and you can come in and read books at lunchtime."
Depute Head Teacher Fiona Ballie explained why they work so hard to make World Book Week a positive event for pupils.
“World Book Day is hugely important. All too often children feel that reading is a chore and it’s a punishment. But we can tap into the energy and enthusiasm that comes from activities during the World Book Week. I think it’s absolutely vital to the kids, to foster a love of reading.”
The school also ran a book swap, and invited guest readers to the tent. Fiona described what was happening.
“We’ve got a book swap where the kids bring in a book that they’ve got at home, that they’re finished with. They can then swap it with somebody else. And if children don’t have a book at home, they can still take a book away with them. There’s no real expectation that you have to bring a book in. We lined up some special guest readers – parents - to come in and read at lunchtimes. The tents themselves were a very popular venue at breaktimes.”
The enthusiasm of children was obvious. As Ailsa and Jack said:
“I think it's really fun and lots of kids love to read in here", "Yeah, cause then your friends can read these sort of books inside of it!”
Making fun events more inclusive is just part of what Dundee school's work to reduce financial barriers to education, this case study looks at how the City Council promoted and supported this authority wide project.
