Literacy Boost Project: James & the Giant Peach Garden by Cordelia Spalding
In this resource, artist Cordelia Spalding shares her extraordinarily creative ‘literacy’ project, which made creativity happen in all sorts of ways in a local school.
This project was shared with AccessArt as part of the 40 Artist Educator Project, funded by Arts Council England, aiming to highlight and celebrate artist-led teaching and facilitation.
Literacy Boost Project: “James & the Giant Peach Garden” by Cordelia Spalding
Now and again, you get a truly joyful commission, and this, for me, was one of them!
The school has a fantastic team of teachers, parents and supporters led by an open-minded and forward-thinking Head!
Together with pupils’ input, they decided that learning about literature, English, reading, and writing wasn’t just something to be taught and learnt but something to “get involved with”, something that could be made tangible and therefore accessible in new ways and something that should have FUN at its very heart.
In particular, there was a need to create particular engagement opportunities for boys and to ensure the work had a strong outdoors/kinetic element and CPD support for staff.
To find a way to start the ball rolling, opinions were sought on what the school’s “favourite book”. With universal appeal to all pupils, much loved by parents and teachers, “James and the Giant Peach” by Roald Dahl was the name that kept coming up!
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Julie D
February 5, 2015 @ 12:49 pm
What a lovely and inspirational idea. My son is a primary school teacher and would love this project to be in his school. Some schools probably would not have the pebbles due to “health and safety” but I think it is great. I loved the brick idea with the shoe boxes with words on too. I work with autistic children and am going to incorporate some of these ideas into my work with them.
Many thanks. Julie Dixon