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We’re sending this update to contacts shared by the Languages, Literacy and Communication and Cross Curriculum Responsibilities Branch to update Consortia contacts on project progress. Our key contact in the Branch is Joanne Sharp.

If you have any questions or would like to share any thoughts or suggestions, please do get in touch. We really do welcome feedback and input from partners in all areas of our work and know that listening to partners is vital to the success of our work.

Best wishes,

Helen Wales

Head of Country – Wales, BookTrust Cymru

Pori Drwy Stori Extension for Nursery-aged children

Consultation:

In summer 2017 we undertook consultation with over 200 participants through surveys, group sessions and telephone/ face-to-face conversations. This consultation explored perceptions of oracy skills for children in Nursery school, existing challenges and current good practice. Ideas for a possible extension of the Pori Drwy Stori programme were also tested.

Participants included Consortia and Local Authority Advisors, school-based practitioners and phase leaders, practitioners in non-maintained settings and higher education early years course leaders. Participants from GwE included Vicky Lees, Primary Literacy Leaders (at the reading for pleasure workshop sessions held in June 2017), Rhosymedre Primary School, Pentre Primary School and Penmorfa Primary School.

The consultation identified a clear need to address oracy skills, a strong suggestion that supporting parents and carers to understand the importance of oracy skills is essential and a very positive response to the proposal to pilot an oracy-focused extension of Pori Drwy Stori for Nursery children.

Nursery Extension Project outline:

The Pori Drwy Story Nursery Extension will build on the main aims of the current programme for Reception aged children: supporting literacy, numeracy and family engagement in the Foundation Phase. It will focus on oracy outcomes. Participating schools and settings will receive two sets of Pori Drwy Stori pilot resources to use with Nursery-aged children and families (3-4 years). The resources will focus on two activity areas that support oracy skills: rhymes and sharing books and stories.

Term 1 resources – It’s Time to Rhyme:

These resources aim to increase rhyme sharing activity between children and parents/ carers. Resources were delivered to schools and settings participating in the pilot in October 2017 for use in the second half of the autumn term.

Term 2 resources – Book Talk:

These resources aim to increase interactive booksharing and specifically talk related to booksharing between children and parents/ carers.

Resources will be delivered to participating schools and settings in early January.

Please get in touch if you would like to receive samples of the resources – helen.wales@booktrust.org.uk.

Schools and settings:

500-600 children from schools and settings across the four Consortia regions will take part in the pilot.

The following schools and settings from GwE are participating in the pilot:

Cylch Meithrin Llanddoged, Conwy
Cylch Meithrin Llansannan, Conwy
Llanfairfechan Playgroup, Conwy
Rhosymedre CP School, Wrexham
Victoria Primary School, Wrexham

Schools were recruited based on previous high engagement with Pori Drwy Stori. Gwenda Roberts supported us to identify non-maintained settings in Conwy following a consultation session we held in June with AWFPA members.

Evaluation:

Final evaluation will be led by an independent consultant and is likely to include before, during and after surveys from parents and carers; structured interviews with practitioners at key stages in the project; visits to schools and settings; and parent/ carer focus groups.

Supporting oracy in the current Reception Pori Drwy Stori programme

Consultation also identified strong links between the current Reception-aged Pori Drwy Stori programme and oracy outcomes. We are also developing oracy-focused support for the current Pori programme, including:

• Short online films to show the programme in practice
• Training sessions for ITE/ relevant undergraduate/ postgraduate students
• A brief document highlighting links between PDS and LNF oracy outcomes

For information about support available for the current programme, please contact Rachel.lloyd@booktrust.org.uk.

Supporting children who are looked after in the early years – Letterbox Club Purple

The Letterbox Club programme was first introduced in Wales in 2009. The programme aims to inspire a love of reading and engagement with numeracy in children who are looked after through the provision of high quality books and educational resources.

The Letterbox Club Purple pilot is aimed at children aged 3-5. Consequently, the pilot will include a focus on how Letterbox Club can support carers of children in this age group to engage with reading and learning activities with their child e.g. through increasing carers’ confidence to engage in these activities and through emphasising the link between early shared reading and talk and communication.

The project will run from October until March and an external evaluation will be available in spring/ summer 2018.

This project will link to findings in two recent BookTrust reports:

Reading in Foster Families (commissioned by BookTrust and undertaken by the National Children’s Bureau) – a UK-wide survey.

Research with practitioners in Wales: Support for foster carers with reading with their children – English version and Welsh version.

132 children from across Wales will take part in the project. These have been recruited through an open invitation to current Local Authority Letterbox Club partners and discussion with relevant Consortia leads.

In GwE, we are working with Anglesey, Conwy and Denbighshire. Sharon Williams from GwE has supported us to identify partners through her LACE networks.