Pupils at Craigroyston Primary School celebrated their creative skills by hosting an Arts Festival last night. Visitors enjoyed the huge variety of artwork created by pupils over the year and were entertained with music and storytelling performances.
The Festival also celebrated the third year of the primary school’s Creative Residency. Staff from Craigroyston Primary School wanted to enable their pupils to engage with professionals from the literary world. The school invited storyteller Mara Menzies, author Nick Thorpe and illustrator Kasia Matyjaszek to work at the school to nurture pupils’ imaginations and literacy skills.
The success of the Residency demonstrates the impact of schools building sustained relationships with authors and storytellers that benefit literacy levels, improve imagination and creative skills, and develop thinking and learning skills in all their pupils.
All elements of the project were celebrated at the Festival, with parents, carers and members of the community coming together to enjoy an evening of art, music and storytelling.
There was so much to see and enjoy at Craigroyston’s arts event. The evening started with a mighty bang courtesy of the ABC drummers and the P5s, and this was followed by a musical recital by the school’s P7 band. Then there was storytelling, marvellous artwork creations from each class in the school, a quiz, a Lego exhibition … well, you get the picture! The evening ended with a singalong with the ever-popular Fischy Music.
The Creative Residency was supported by Scottish Gas and co-ordinated by Scottish Book Trust, the national charity changing lives through reading and writing.
Funding for the programme has enabled Mara Menzies, one of Scotland’s best-loved performance storytellers, to work with pupils during the Residency as part of a sustained commitment by the school to improve the children’s literacy levels.
Over the past three years, Mara has given Primary 3 pupils an introduction to storytelling, worked with them to create their own stories and shown how to share those stories in front of an audience.
During the Residency, pupils also worked with writer, campaigner and coach Nick Thorpe, who is Patron of Reading at Craigroyston Primary School. Under this scheme, which runs across the UK, a school and their patron develop an ongoing relationship and encourage a reading for pleasure culture in the school.
Earlier this year, award-winning author and illustrator Kasia Matyjaszek held several workshops with Primary 1 pupils to discuss the stories, themes and images in her books. She also shared tips to help pupils create their own illustrations as well as larger scale class artworks.
The partnership between Scottish Book Trust and Scottish Gas started in 2016 when Scottish Gas approached the charity for expertise in developing a literacy project at Craigroyston Primary School. Scottish Gas is a major employer in the area and wanted to support the local community by improving the employability and life chances of the children living there.
Drawing on the many positive outcomes from the Residency, pupils at the school are looking forward to putting on their biggest show ever on 24 May.
Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust, said: “The Arts Festival is a wonderful showcase of the creative work pupils have undertaken and a celebration of their workshops with Mara Menzies, Nick Thorpe and Kasia Matyjaszek.
“This partnership with Scottish Gas and Craigroyston Primary School has enhanced creativity and literacy in the school and supported pupils to become confident storytellers and speakers, and we’d like to thank everyone involved in making it a success.”
Lorna Stewart, Head Teacher of Craigroyston Primary School, said: “Our P1-4 pupils have really enjoyed working with Mara, Nick and Kasia. We have been creating artwork, reading and writing stories and hearing stories from around the world.
“We are dedicated to improving literacy attainment at Craigroyston, and sustained input from storytellers and authors is a fantastic way to build communication, reading and writing skills in our pupils. Many thanks to Scottish Gas for their continued support in funding this project and for Scottish Book Trust for project management.”
Steve Crabb, Director of Corporate Citizenship and Consumer Vulnerability at Scottish Gas, said: “We have been very pleased to have been able to support this programme which has been a really creative way to build on our employee volunteer reading programme at Craigroyston Primary School. There have been many positive results and the Arts Festival is a wonderful celebration of the pupils’ achievements across the year.”
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