Innovative author project gives ASN kids a really great story to tell
A PROJECT to help ASN students develop a greater interest in storytelling has been hailed as a success.
Celebrating Stories was a joint project between Buckie Community High School (BCHS), Keith Grammar School (KGS) and Speyside High School (SHS).
It was the product of a joint application for funding to the Scottish Book Trust ASN Schools Residencies project by BCHS/KGS school librarian Stephen Leitch, KGS ASN teacher Emma Campbell and her counterpart at SHS, Esther Green. The cash provided for 15 sessions with author Victoria Williamson.
Mr Leitch said: “Our project sought to work with ASN pupils across the three schools to develop a greater interest and enjoyment in storytelling and the confidence to create their own story in ways that pupils wanted to use.
“We were delighted when author Victoria Williamson agreed to be our author in residence.
“After an initial meeting online between the three schools, Victoria and a representative from Scottish Book Trust, the project started after the Easter break. Victoria visited all three schools every two weeks.
“She designed the sessions to be very hands on, sensory and practical, looking at different ways to tell a story, using our senses to create words to use in stories, and also gave individual advice to pupils on creating a story.
“All the sessions were enthusiastically received by the pupils and staff who all got involved, and between the author visits pupils worked on developing and creating their stories. The project worked with 18 S1 and S2 pupils across the three schools.
“Due to the different pupils taking part in each school, various approaches were taken and developed as the project moved on. Keith Grammar pupils decided to work together on a story. For this they created puppets and sets to tell the story and recorded it too, creating the music and sound effects to go with it.
“Buckie High pupils took a different approach, deciding mostly to create individual stories and using a comic strip layout to tell their stories. Two pupils also turned this into a short film version of their story. At Speyside High writing stories and short stories was the favoured format for their stories.”
The culmination of the project was a Celebrating Stories event held at Buckie High School on June 24 which pupils from Keith Grammar attended. At this event, hosted in the school library, each story was showcased to assembled crowd of pupils and staff.
The variety of formats and creativity of the pupils was a delight to see and everyone enjoyed seeing and watching all the stories. Mr Leitch created a digital book to showcase the pupils work and include photos of the pupils taken during the project.
He added: “The whole project has been such a positive experience for the pupils involved.
“They have grown in confidence during the sessions, to the extent that most were happy to talk about their piece of work in front of other pupils from different schools which they wouldn’t have done before. Victoria Williamson was a delight to work with on this project. Her sessions were expertly curated and brought out the best in the pupil’s creativity.”
