A Hurley Birley Christmas - Pupils at Birley Primary Academy publish collection of Christmas poems
A collection of Christmas poems written by KS2 pupils at Birley Primary Academy in Sheffield has been published as part of their curriculum enrichment activities.
Raising aspirations is one of the curriculum drivers at Birley Primary Academy and this project allowed all children involved to achieve something special by having their poem published.
We caught up with Dawn Mcaughey, Headteacher, to find out how the project came about and what impact it’s had on the pupils, families and academy staff.
Tell us about the project
KS2 children worked alongside the children's author Gareth Baker to create poems about the festive season. Gareth held workshops to motivate every KS2 class to write a poem, encouraging them with ideas that could be used within the writing process.
Towards the end of the project, several children had the opportunity to work alongside illustrator Vicky Kuhn to create a front cover for the book and illustrations to accompany their writing.
At the end of the project, all poems were collated to create the academy’s first ever published poetry book entitled ‘A Hurley Birley Christmas’. Each year group had a different style for their poem, including list poems, acrostic poems where the first letter of each line spells out a word or a phrase, free verse and rhyming poems.
Pupils from Birley Primary Academy proudly display their published book - A Hurley Birley Christmas book of poems.
All parents and carers have had the opportunity to pre-order copies of the book (at a reduced price) in time for Christmas. So far, the response has been fantastic.
Can you describe the benefit to the children? How has this impacted their learning?
The project has had a significant impact on pupils learning, while creating a real buzz about the writing process again. Creating a desire and purpose for writing is not always the easiest thing to do, to ensure that all children are motivated to write; however, this project certainly achieved this and the writing outcomes have been fantastic. During the process, children developed a number of skills that they can apply across other genres. Teachers have been equally enthused and inspired by Gareth’s interaction and delivery in the workshops.
Exciting, engaging and memorable opportunities such as these are exactly the sort of things we want the children at Birley Primary Academy to experience during their time with us. We are extremely proud of the poetry book and I hope all of the children are proud of their individual contributions towards it."
Nottingham based author, storyteller and patron of reading Gareth Baker added, "It was a real pleasure to work with the KS2 children at Birley Primary Academy for three days. You should all be proud of this book. It's a real showcase of what you are capable of. Keep dreaming big, aiming for the stars and giving everything your best!"