'I Can Sell you the Wind' - Creative Arts in Schools Team

'I can sell you the Wind' - Creative Arts in Schools Team

The refurbished herring boat/drifter ‘The Reaper’ which is the flagship of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, visited Oban and Tobermory on 15th & 16th May as part of a west coast ‘Homecoming 2009’ tour.The boat is open for visits from the public and to en-hance/augment the boat’s stay, CAST successfully ap-plied for funding from the Scottish Booktrust Live Literature scheme for a storyteller to visit each of our 7 Mull primaries and Tobermory High. We contracted writer/storyteller Ian Stephen from Lewis to undertake the tour of schools and deliver a one hour-long session in each school with a total audience of 190 pupils. In tandem with Ian’s Mull schools visits, Oban Library was also successful in gaining similar funding for him to hold storytelling ses-sions in Oban. Cast co-ordinated visits throughout Friday morning to both the boat and the stories for 124 children from the following primary schools: St Columba’s, Bar-caldine, Park, Luing, Kilninver and Dalmally.

Prior to Ian’s visit, the schools were provided with a Reaper resource pack compiled by CAST and the Fisheries Museum with information about the boat and fishing industry. Ian used to crew on the boat and delivered sessions which focused on maritime  tales and boat poems. Along with the stories, he passed on his knowledge of knots and at the end of each school session the pupils had learned some basic knots and were able to remember at least one story.

Through storytelling Ian brought an imaginative, creative element to the visit with the following benefits:  he developed learning opportunities about this specific topic in creative/imaginative ways, engaged primary pupils with this local maritime event, developed an understanding of and interest in poetry/storytell-ing, improved and developed literacy skills in this age group, provided the opportunity to understand the relevance and application of literacy skills.The outcomes included developing links across the curriculum, spe-cifically english language and social studies.

Please click here for a leaflet

To see the slideshow of the project, please see below:

Please click here for The Kingfisher