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In an effort to prepare our children for the fast-paced, ever-changing, wonderfully diverse world that we all share, here at Ditchling (St Margaret’s) Primary and Nursery we have just celebrated Literacy Week. The focus this year was helping the children to make global links, through rich and inclusive texts from all over the world. While also giving opportunities to explore these ideas through drama, art, discussion and of course writing.

The children in Key Stage 1 were learning through ‘The Runaway Chapatti’, Year 3 and 4 ‘The Egyptian Cinderella’ and Year 5 and 6 ‘The Proudest Blue’. To help the children immerse themselves into the different cultures explored in these texts, we reached out to our school community and invited people from a range of faiths to share their religion with the children. This was an excellent opportunity for the children to gain a deeper understanding of what these religions look like in the real world, while also making the learning more memorable.

We were also lucky enough to have a visit from the ‘Drama Geezers’ who really brought these texts to life through drama, artwork and laughter. These inspiring workshops helped the children to make global links with different countries, landmarks and traditions, while also being so much fun! A child in Key Stage 1 expressed “It was awesome to be creative with no judgement”, and another child reported how “funny and cool” the drama was.

After each year group’s drama workshop, the children created their own storyboard. These storyboards will soon be turned into a real life book, taking our children from engaged readers, to captive storytellers, to now published authors.