Orkney project: Orcadian Reading Clubs (ORCS) - Introduction

Where the idea came from:

• An informal teacher discussion about the lack of children in the school who ‘really enjoyed getting their noses into books’.
• An observation that children were using a limited vocabulary in speech and writing.
• Our reading scheme (Ginn 360) was looking rather tired, and, moreover, teachers were tired of it!
• Literacy circles were ‘in the air’ - discussed at meetings and conferences. (In particular our Quality Improvement Officer, Tina Smith, was in touch with the Early Intervention Team in Aberdeen who had developed Book Detectives; Tina gave us some of the materials, and that set us off in the right direction.)

To tackle these obvious issues we needed money that would allow us to buy assessment materials and books for the children to read as well as finding the time to make visits and talk to others.

The PTA raised £1000, which was enough to cover the literacy circles part of our development, and we also won £10,000 from the Rolls-Royce Science Prize, which was more than enough to refurbish our library.

We did a lot of research on popular authors, by asking the children and other teachers about their favourites, and we looked on the web for statistics on top books lent from libraries. We also visited our county library to speak to the staff there and to look at the stock. We then invited the owner of a nearby bookshop to put on a show at the school and children chose their favourite books by attaching a yellow sticker to them. We then bought these books.

After that, the teachers and pupils really took control. The following four reports show how individual teachers took literacy circles forward in their classes and how self-reflection and sensitive observation are essential ingredients in this sort of action research.