Storyteller Mara Menzies joined Craigroyston Primary P2 children for a storytelling session in North Edinburgh Arts’ beautiful community gardens yesterday.
The event, the first of it’s kind, was organised by Scottish Gas and Scottish Book Trust, who are partners in an initiative to improve literacy levels at the local school by encouraging reading and storytelling.
Craigroyston Primary School has identified that the reading ability amongst its some groups of pupils as an issue that needs to be tackled. The school has found that by the time some children reach P5, they do not possess the right levels of literacy to help them succeed as they move through their education.
There is a real need to encourage families to read and be creative with children, so to better equip them for the future and yesterday’s event was a perfect way to encourage a love of stories.
The session is part of Scottish Gas’ community partnership with Craigroyston. The business is currently championing this issue by sending 10 volunteers per class, from p1 to P3, to the school for an hour a week to read with the children. For continuity these volunteers join the pupils when they are in primary 1 and stay with them until primary 3. This project has been a real success and has been going for three years, with excellent feedback provided by the school.
Lesley Avinou of Scottish Gas, said: “We’ve built a strong partnership with Craigroyston School over the past three years. Today’s event with the Book Trust builds on the great work our volunteers do to inspire children to enjoy reading and story-telling. Our people truly love supporting the community and are very much proud to be part of this activity.”
And the children? “The stories were brilliant and funny. We wanted to stay – we didn’t want to go back to school!” said one.
More pictures will be posted on our FACEBOOK page soon
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