Creative Partnerships

Shoreham Academy has wanted to explore new approaches to literacy with the whole of its Year 9s. We have therefore implemented a large scale project and have wanted to work with three different practitioners, to lead on the projects. Although these projects have employed different methods and have had different topics, the aims were the same, to raise interest and abilities in reading and writing.

The three projects were linked to the three schools which our school has recently divided into, since moving into vertical tutoring. This means there are now 3 schools, under which pupils from all year groups are divided - these schools are named after local authors - 'Doyle', 'Kipling' and 'Wells'. These three authors form the focus for each project.

For the Doyle project a creative writer and illustrator has been working on murder mysteries, and themes relating to Doyle. For the Kipling project a prop maker and animator have been recreating scenes from 'The Jungle Book', using aspects of the text to recreate animated scenes. For the Wells project a radio presenter and writer have been recreating the radio bulletin from 'The War of the Worlds' and bringing it up to date.

The project has been a huge success and the students have gained immensely from it. Their work has been exhibited in the main hall on Thursday 15 July and all year groups from the academy have been invited to see it.

About 15 parents attended the exhibition too and were hugely impressed.

The students have not only improved their literacy levels through story writing but also their self confidence through animation work and radio broadcasting. We are hoping to build on their success and take our work with Creative Partnerships to the next level.