St Columba's are Shaken not Stirred

St Columba's RC Primary School in Cupar is one of our four flagship schools. They recently held a James Bond evening to tie in with our Authors Live event with Charlie Higson, broadcast on 7th October. Jo Boggan, headteacher, tells us more about it.

Our P7 class is lively and full of fun, some members are really enthusiastic and capable readers but others, particularly some of the boys, are less keen to pick up and read. How could we get them to engage with Charlie Higson prior to meeting him online?

Maggie Gray from the library service provided the inspiration: Charlie Higson’s series about the young James Bond!

James Bond as a theme offered so much that would capture the imagination of these P7 pupils. Glamour, sophistication, daring… What’s more it felt ‘grown up’ and that always appeals!

We decided on a Bond themed night and to invite all the P7 class and their parents too. The ideas flowed. All were invited to look the part and ‘cocktails’ (shaken not stirred and mixtures of fruit juice and lemonade) were served to our guests on arrival by black bow-tied waiters. The Janitor joined in, ditching his work wear for sophisticated evening dress. The girls came looking beautiful, dressed up to the nines and the boys wore all sorts of outfits from ski wear to camouflage to black bow tie. One good thing about this theme was that all were able to dress up at little or no cost.

Photographs were taken so that each guest could take home a souvenir, next came a shooting game. Again little expense had brought us some water pistols and helium filled balloons. The kids enjoyed firing at the balloons and a sturdy polythene sheet and some old towels meant a quick mop up was pretty easy!

It was time for the mission!

The P7 teacher had arranged a treasure hunt round the school building. It involved leaping off the horse in the gym as well as some brain teasers and stepping through red wool ‘lasers’ in one of the class rooms. Of course the prize was golden!

Whilst the children were occupied on their mission I had a chance to chat to the parents I explained that our aim was to get the children to read Charlie Higson’s trilogy and that as a starter we would gift the first book Silverfin to each child.

We asked that parents consider how best to support and encourage their own child. Reading aloud to the child would suit in some cases, for others it would be enough to just keep asking questions about what was happening. It was great to get a chance to chat to parents and reiterate that engaging the youngsters with a book was the key aim not that each child read every word himself.

We lent audio copies of the book to those who would really struggle with the reading and encouraged a couple of Dads who whose children are perhaps less than keen,  to read in parallel with their sons i.e. ‘tonight we’ll both read chapter 3…' The idea behind this being that they could discuss the story as it developed and keep the encouragement going.

We finished the evening with a film excerpt and questions afterwards. The parents scored very much better than the youngsters in the quiz (we had primed them!) which puzzled the kids but its good to keep them on their toes…

We had a fun filled evening, it involved some organisation but not too much, very little cost and helped to reach some hard-to-reach parents that may not have come to a curricular evening. It inspired some reading. Not every child read Silverfin but several ‘can but don’t’ readers did!

Other news:

You can register to watch the next Authors Live event now! Philip Pullman will be speaking about, and reading from, his tales – Clockwork, The Firework Makers Daughter, I was a Rat and The Scarecrow and his Servant – which have just recently been republished in one volume. These stories are suitable for 8+ and have fantastic fairytale elements to them. He will also be talking about his books that have been made into movies and we will be showing clips from The Golden Compass.