Rosebank Primary School came up with a very creative and inclusive way of making sure everyone focused on reading and books without a prohibitive cost to parents.

Rosebank 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. Jennifer describes how:

“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. They told us:

“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.”

“I come to most events that the school put on anyways, and most of them are free. So I think that’s good for most families. As you can see it’s full of people.” 

 “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!”