‘Fantastic’ Forthview!

Children from Forthview Primary School and their families have created their very own story book. ‘Whose Egg Is It Anyway?’ was launched at a special reception at the City Chambers yesterday, where Education convener Paul Godzik praised the children for their ‘fantastic work’.

‘Whose Egg Is It Anway?’ really is a fantastic effort, and an awful lot of hard work went into transforming the orginal idea into a beautiful storybook.

Head Teacher Eileen Littlewood explained: “The idea for this book was first conceived by parents at Forthview primary who have been part of a parent reading group, working with the family support teacher, Tracey Berry, MBE. They had become very aware of the importance of reading for enjoyment and, because pupils at the school had already published two books and they had seen how this raised self-esteem and increased interest in and enthusiasm for reading, they thought it would be good to write their own story with their children.

“Pupils at Forthview, like many other across the city, receive direct vocabulary instruction through the CEC/NHS Word Boost vocabulary programme. It was decided to incorporate some of the learned vocabulary – Wow words- into the story book.

“There was a lot of discussion over what would make an engaging story that would successfully incorporate the targeted words and the group eventually came up with the plot for ‘Whose Egg Is It Anyway?’ When you read the book you will see that the authors are the main protagonists. They lose their ball and find an egg – an egg like nothing they have ever seen before. They need to find whose egg it is before it is too late and so they take the magic school bus around the world to find where it belongs. They try the Botanics, the farm, the ocean, the Antarctic, Australia and Africa before eventually going to the Past. There they find out whose egg it really is.

“The group applied to Radio Forth’s Cash for Kids for funding to publish the book and were delighted when they were given a grant. We used funding from the Scottish Book Trust Live Literacy Fund to help pay for Mary Turner-Thomson of Whitewater Publishing to work with the group to support the writing process and publication.

“The authors decided it should be a picture book and thought first about using photographs but decided that that would make the book too specific to the group. We were very fortunate that Graham Ramsay, a young artist and illustrator known to Forthview (because he is my son-in-law!) and has also helped illustrate the Word Boost project, was happy to illustrate the book as his gift to the school.

“The process took a while but here is the result of all the work – an entertaining story for everyone to read and enjoy. A story that encourages vocabulary development and is fun. We plan to give every school participating in the Word Boost project a copy of this book as well as gifting it to our local library. We hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we have done.”

So there you have it – the story behind Forthview’s fantastic story! And ‘Whose Egg Is It Anyway?’ Well, you’ll need to read the book to find out!

More pictures of the launch on our Facebook page