Are there aspiring chefs in your classroom? £500 prize Categories are primary, secondary and family. mone y Send us your favourite recipe with a photograph of Pupils at your

It will be published as an online recipe card and it could school can enter also earn the young chef a place at our Masterchef-style now!

Can your walking bus or school choir sing in tune?

If so, then get a gang together to enter our annual song contest! You can enter as a walk to school group, a school choir or simply a group of friends.

You can stick to the original lyrics, or even adapt them to sing about why it’s good to Walk to School. This year’s song is... song in a professional recording studio and the chance to “Walking on Sunshine” perform at our Walk to School events. by Katrina and the Waves Kent Literacy Awards

Your evening will be hosted by Simon Dolby from the KM Charity Team and Nicola Everett from KMFM.

Welcome Cllr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Education & Health Reform, Kent County Council Terry Waite, humanitarian and author

Presentation of area awards Ashford Bexley Canterbury Dartford & Gravesham Maidstone Medway Swale Tonbridge & Malling

Congratulations Penny Bill - Kent County Council Terry Waite

Presentation of Overall Awards Best use of History to develop Speaking and Listening skills Best use of Drama to develop Speaking and Listening skills Best topic to develop Writing skills Best School Library Best initiative to encourage Reading for Pleasure Best initiative to develop Speaking & Listening skills Best whole-school initiative to develop Writing Best cross-curricular initiative

Our thanks go to: Blessing by Blé for their decorative Independent Music Productions for assistance with this event. their technical help with this event. Kent Literacy Awards

Ashford Victoria Road - Best use of poetry to develop cross-curricular writing

Bexley Gravel Hill Primary School - Best use of history to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills Willow Bank Primary School, Bexley - Best promotion of reading for pleasure

Canterbury Briary Primary School - Best initiative to encourage reading for pleasure St John’s CEP School - Best use of drama to develop speaking and listening skills St John’s CEP School - Best initiative to support EAL families

Dartford & Gravesham Fleetdown Primary School - Best school library Westgate Primary School - Best scheme to excite reluctant readers Riverview Infant School - Best initiative to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills Wilmington - Best current affairs topic to develop writing Wilmington Academy - Best book week theme

Maidstone New Line Learning Academy - Best scheme to excite reluctant readers Valley Invicta Primary School at Aylesford - Best cross-curricular writing initiative

Medway Brompton Westbrook Primary School - Best initiative to support EAL families Bradfields Academy - Best initiatives to support reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in students with special needs Kent Literacy Awards

The Rowans AP Academy - Best scheme to excite reluctant readers Kingfisher Primary School, Medway - Best school library

Swale Lansdowne Primary School - Best promotion of reading for pleasure Rose Street Primary School - Best initiative to develop writing

Tonbridge & Malling - Best initiative to develop speaking & listening skills Kings Hill Primary School - Best use of drama to develop speaking and listening skills The - Best scheme to excite reluctant readers

Special Award The Rotary Club - Most engaging writing competition

2017 Winners Ashford Area Winners

Best Use of Poetry to Develop Cross-Curricular Writing Victoria Road Primary School Victoria Road Primary developed a project using the poetry of the First World War, linking it to Armistice Week as well as curriculum work relating to the Second World War. It examined issues such as patriotism and humanitarianism, focusing closely on the anti- war messages of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. The impact on pupils’ writing skills has been dramatic, with children encouraged to experiment with a wide range of language and stylistic devices. The project also develops pupils’ reading comprehension, and is credited with helping foster higher-level thinking skills in the pupils. The project serves as an excellent model for the rest of the school, encouraging teachers to explore more and more sophisticated forms of poetry. Bexley Area Winners

Best Use of History to Develop Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Skills Gravel Hill Primary School After consulting pupils to try to discover why their writing standards in history were not consistent with the work they did in English lessons, teachers learned that children were struggling to find inspiration because the topics studied in history were so far removed from their own experience. To overcome this barrier, the school initiated historical themed days introduced by a local history expert, with children encouraged to wear period costume and participate in historical activities. Parents encouraged their children to pursue the approach at home, helping with research, extra reading and making costumes, and the school is considering using the same approach in RE and geography lessons. To compensate for a lack of available funding, the school has started to use a free, local artefact-lending service. Pupils’ response to the scheme has been unanimously positive, and at its end their standard of writing was found to be above the KS2 national average.

Best Promotion of Reading for Pleasure Willow Bank Primary Building on work prioritising improvement to the teaching of reading the year before, Willow Bank set out to encourage a love of books among its pupils, with the aim of setting them on the path to becoming lifelong readers. The school allocated funding to each class teacher to create inviting book corners for reading, and spent £7,500 on books. Willow Bank also created a communal enchanted-forest story area where classes could go for adult-led story-time sessions, and the school has used Buster’s Book Club to provide incentives for children to continue their reading at home. With literacy levels low among parents, the school is working to establish reading partnership events with parents and children, and it has started hosting workshops to encourage reluctant boy readers with poet Neal Zetter. The school has succeeded in transforming pupils’ perception of reading, which is now seen as a cool thing to do, and attainment levels have been transformed as a consequence. Canterbury Area Winners

Best Initiative to Encourage Reading for Pleasure Briary Primary School With few pupils being users of the local library, Briary Primary developed its Book Shed to provide a free book-lending service and to engage with parents about boosting child literacy in a non-threatening way. Every single child visited the shed during the first day of a Big Briary Book Swap. Children are given prizes for reading at home, a Read Aloud month encouraged reading together, and parents are encouraged to come into the school to read with or to children in a commitment-free fashion. To encourage greater family support of reading at home, the school set up training sessions with parents, with participants acting as school-gate ambassadors and encouraging others to follow their lead. And there has been a marked improvement in reading performance among Pupil Premium Children.

Best Use of Drama to Develop Speaking and Listening Skills St John’s C of E Primary With the twin aims of developing new learning approaches and promoting online safety, St John’s set up a scheme in which children would make films designed to encourage risk-fee use of digital technology. Children discussed their use of computers, social media and apps before writing storyboards and scripts, practising their acting skills and then making the films. The project was a fun and immersive cross-curricular learning activity, with children developing a range of teamwork and communication skills. The films have been shared with other schools in the area for use as teaching aids and digital safeguarding tools, are accessible on St John’s website so parents and pupils can view them whenever they wish, and they will remain a part of the primary’s safeguarding resources for years to come. St John’s now intends to extend the use of drama and film to different subjects and themes, with Year 6 pupils already producing a film about global warming. Canterbury Area Winners

Best Initiative to Support Families with English as an Additional Language St John’s Primary In recent years St John’s has experienced a sharp increase in admissions of pupils with very little or no English. The school’s First Steps in English initiative is designed to accelerate speaking, listening and understanding so pupils can access the curriculum as soon as possible. Pupils with English as an Additional Language – or EAL –work with a specialist EAL teaching assistant in a designated EAL room each morning. The children take part in fun activities, using puppets, music, song, drama, cookery, craft and outings, to learn the basics of English.The majority spend the first four terms at school working in this way, and most are working with other pupils of their age within a year, when they continue to receive support from the EAL or teaching assistant. Following pupil feedback about the problems relatives might be experiencing adjusting to the English language and lifestyle, the EAL team has also set up groups with families to teach them basic language skills and connect them to the school community. Dartford and Gravesham Area Winners

Best School Library Fleetdown Primary Wanting to reinstall a school library but faced by space and financial constraints, Fleetdown Primary had to think outside the box. It purchased two fairy-tale themed wooden lodges for Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils, which were installed during the summer of 2017. The assistant head organised a group of parent volunteers to collect books from existing book corners and categorise them according to the school’s new IT Reading Pro tool, with one of the volunteers becoming the school librarian. She also launched a Readathon and other reading fundraising initiatives to raise money for two library pods. Year 6 library monitors run the library pods, which provide a quiet space to read at break and lunch times. The monitors lead assemblies to inspire reading and story-telling sessions for younger pupils, oversee the library’s upkeep, and display pupils’ book- themed art. All pupils have a dedicated 30-minute slot to visit the library and change their books and read for pleasure. Since the library’s opening in September 2017, Fleetdown has observed rapid improvements in Lexile reading-skills scores across the school.

Best Scheme to Excite Reluctant Readers Westgate Primary School The school’s immersive reading initiative involves the KS2 teacher reading to pupils a book that they will not already know, with the class analysing a chapter and character actions and feelings throughout the week, practising skimming and scanning skills, and using vocabulary from the book. Each week concludes with a Free to Fly writing activity, using the week’s chapter as inspiration. Whole-class reading enables the teacher to bring the book to life for pupils, and discussion-based analysis succeeds in drawing out less outspoken children. The writing activity encourages children to speculate about what might happen next in the book, which helps to generate excitement in the following week’s instalment. At the end of term, the book remains unfinished, and 10 copies are distributed among pupils to share, helping to create an informal book club for children and a desire among them to read more and more. Extra support for lower-ability pupils enabled every pupil to fully take part and promoted class unity. Dartford and Gravesham Area Winners

Best Initiative to Develop Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Skills Riverview Infant School Riverview Infant School was introduced to the Storytelling Schools approach by children’s author Adam Guillain, who made a visit in 2015. The approach raises standards in speaking, listening and writing by encouraging children to learn to tell stories from memory: the idea is that children re-telling them create an inner store of language, ideas and imagination. The approach has had a significant impact on literacy standards at Riverview, with pupils’ writing skills going from strength to strength. All classrooms have display boards displaying the ‘Hear, Map, Step, Speak’ approach to storytelling. Children are encouraged to step-speak all the main events in stories, using mime, gesture and physical movement to enforce recall of the narrative. And they take their learning outside and share the story with friends. Stories are also shared across the school, with teachers visiting classes in other year groups. Riverview now has a Storytelling Schools portfolio, videos of children telling stories, and PowerPoint demonstrations to show the cross-curricular benefits of storytelling.

Best Current Affairs Topic to Develop Writing Wilmington Academy Wilmington Academy’s Syrian Refugee Crisis Transactional Writing Initiative was created following a rise in negativity in the student cohort about immigrants and refugees, particularly in relationship to the Middle East and in the run-up to the EU referendum. After becoming an IB World school, Wilmington also wanted to teach transactional writing skills to GCSE students for the English Language qualification that would develop citizenship, empathy, flexibility of mind and compassion. Pupils were asked to take on the role of a teenager living in Damascus, using literacy skills to imagine their journey from Syrian war zone to English classroom. This involved writing letters to cousins in England, watching broadcasts of Syrian political protests, producing news reports on conditions in refugee camps, reviewing the films ‘Cries from Syria’ and ‘A Syrian Love Story’, and creating a victim’s-view speech to challenge classroom prejudice. Every group that took part was fully engaged, with pupils describing the unit as having a major impact on the way they looked at global issues and their ability to empathise with others. Dartford and Gravesham Area Winners

Best Book Week Theme Wilmington Academy Book week is an important part of the school calendar every year at Wilmington Academy, with a three-week preparation period involving the whole school and culminating in a week of activities demonstrating the importance of literacy in every subject. This year, post-16 pupils developed the idea for a Spy Games theme. They created posters, a booklet, a list of missions, and sign-up sheets to generate interest, and activities included riddles, designing spy agencies, compiling dossiers, hunting down hidden agents, a laser maze, baking cakes containing secret fillings, and challenges testing observation and surveillance skills. On World Book Day, pupils and staff dressed up as their favourite book characters, with staff encouraged to dress up as spies. The event was an enormous success, in spite of the fact that World Book Day took place during a week affected by heavy snow, when the school was shut for three days. So determined were pupils to take part that they sent in videos, photographs and emails while the school was closed, and the week was extended to ensure that everybody who wanted to participate could do so. Maidstone Area Winners

Best Scheme to Excite Reluctant Readers New Line Learning Academy New Line Learning Academy uses a football-themed initiative to encourage reluctant readers. Its Reading Football scheme has succeeded in encouraging a desire to read more even among pupils with lower ability, as the children taking part control how much they read. As well as helping to develop reading and vocabulary abilities, the programme encourages speaking, listening and social skills. The children enjoy the scheme because it is competitive but also attainable, and they get instant rewards and feedback.Children pick team names and can adapt the scheme to other sports. And while it was originally devised with boys in mind – with more lower- level readers at the school being boys than girls – it is not gender-specific.

Best Cross-Curricular Writing Initiative Valley Invicta Primary at Aylesford Valley Invicta’s scheme encourages pupils to write about what they learn in science and human studies. By focusing on a key core of writing genres, children are helped to gain expertise and confidence in each type of text, and gain proficiency in planning, writing and editing. Adapting the scheme each year helps engage each cohort by recognising and considering their specific needs and interests. By linking the scheme to as much of the curriculum as possible, there has been an exciting improvement in the quality and quantity of the writing children produce. All school trips, visits, reading, artwork, displays, assemblies and plays have been carefully considered to enrich children’s knowledge of their topics, enabling them to draw effortlessly on a rich vocabulary and deep understanding of the areas they have been studying. The writing produced has dealt with dinosaurs, Africa, London, Victorian scientists and the Second World War, and it is displayed around the school and celebrated in awards assemblies. Medway Area Winners

Best Initiative to Support Families with English as an Additional Language Brompton Westbrook Primary With Brompton Westbrook’s ‘Reading is Understanding’ initiative, every child gets 40 minutes of reading-development time four times a week. A single piece of text, which can be fiction or non-fiction, is used for four different lessons, but each day is different and includes independent, group and paired tasks. There are short challenges and activities that involve all aspects of the curriculum, and children record their feelings about their books and tasks in reading journals. Day one focuses on reading; day two on vocabulary; day three on inference; and day four on questioning and deduction.The short length of the sessions and the texts helps to maintain pupil interest and engagement both during the activities and outside of the classroom. Pupils’ reading abilities have improved greatly, with the biggest change being in reading confidence, and children from families for whom English is an additional language demonstrating a significant improvement in comprehension following the vocabulary work.

Best Initiative to Support Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Skills among Students with Special Needs Bradfields Academy Bradfields Academy caters for 300 children with special educational needs. Its Wednesday Wordless Books scheme was inspired by a session on the importance of encouraging the reading of books without words, and is used to inspire interest in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and to prepare higher-level pupils for GCSE English. Each week a random image is displayed in all the academy’s classes, and is used to develop children’s vocabulary and story-telling skills - with teachers writing down ideas, and pupils encouraged to take part in developing narratives in round-robin sessions. Higher-ability pupils are encouraged to create written stories, with the best ones rewarded in weekly celebration assemblies. Reading and writing abilities have improved dramatically across the academy, with almost a third of pupils now taking English GCSE compared with zero two years ago; nearly half of the academy now being independent readers; and children’s use of creative writing winning praise from Ofsted in an Outstanding judgement last year. Medway Area Winners

Best Scheme to Excite Reluctant Readers The Rowans AP Academy The Rowans introduced its Reading Interventions programme to close the significant gap between new starters’ reading and actual ages. The scheme uses one-to-one sessions to minimise embarrassment and boost confidence, and pupils are given the chance to choose the books being read. To facilitate reading aloud, in some sessions, pupils will read to the dog Buster, as dogs are non-judgemental, attentive and perfect listeners. When the scheme was introduced, there was an initial stigma attached to it and some resistance among pupils about attending it. Now pupils are happy to attend, consider it part of the regular school day, and self-refer to the sessions. Hodder Education reading assessments that take place three times a year at The Rowans have shown dramatic advances since the introduction of the scheme, with some pupils making up to 37 months of progress.

Best School Library Kingfisher Primary School Kingfisher Primary has a whole-school focus on reading. The money for its new library was generated by fundraising carried out by the school’s parent-teacher association, children chose all the books through its pupil parliament, and Year 5 pupils are the librarians. The library has a safe space for children to use for reading during lunch and break times. And to sustain pupil interest, the school is working with the local public library to have book deliveries to match particular topics. Parents have even started borrowing books on their library cards. The library has succeeded in achieving the school’s aim of creating a buzz around reading, with children talking about and recommending their favourite books to each other and teachers. And there has been a measurable improvement in reading performance, with the number of children meeting age-related expectations rising from 67% to 82% over two terms, and some of the most regular visitors to the library being Year 5 and 6 boys. Swale Area Winners

Best Promotion of Reading for Pleasure Lansdowne Primary School Lansdowne Primary’s ‘Read Rave Recommend’ scheme promotes both reading and speaking skills: children are encouraged to read books of their choice and go into school and rave about them on the playground and in the classroom; they then share their books and recommend them at the end of the day in read-and-tell sessions. The children are responsible for the delivery of the initiative, and the classrooms and school hall all have displays where they can put books and encourage each other to read them. A book recommended by the head teacher links to the school’s author of the term. The programme has succeeded in getting children to read for pleasure and talk about books, and increased the school’s reading mileage and amount of home reading. Pupils love to take books from the displays and share them with each other.

Best Initiative to Develop Writing Rose Street Primary School Rose Street Primary in Sheerness has a high percentage of children from deprived and vulnerable backgrounds, for whom improving literacy skills has been a major challenge. To tackle that challenge, the school developed its Green Big Writer scheme. The scheme uses texts linked to term topics as the focus for group discussions, writing- skills practice and the inspiration for a final piece of work written on green paper. The purpose of the writing is entertainment, information or persuasion. The final pieces of independent, ‘green-paper’ writing are done in class in a relaxed atmosphere, and then shared with other year groups and the school’s senior leadership team. Clear success criteria for planning and assessing the writing tasks mean children see instant benefits to learning literacy skills. The initiative has succeeded in promoting focus, motivation and independent writing among pupils; teachers now have greater clarity about how to link reading, writing and other curriculum ideas; and both pupils and parents are full of enthusiasm for the scheme. Tonbridge and Malling Area Winners

Best Initiative to Develop Speaking and Listening Skills The Malling School The Malling School’s Unit Radio produces original comedy plays and interview shows. It was set up by teacher Giles Whitehead in 2008, and is run by staff at the Tydeman Centre speech, language and autism unit. As interest in it has spread, involvement has extended from the Tydeman Centre to the wider school. The radio format enables pupils to develop language skills without being held back by pen and paper, and helps to develop confidence, self-esteem, teamwork skills and friendships. Pupils develop the stories through improvisation before recording and editing broadcasts. Special bids and money generated by live shows have allowed the school to acquire equipment to enable high-quality recording and production standards, and to familiarise pupils with radio practice and technology. Giles has dedicated a lot of his personal time to editing the shows, and one pupil has gone on to record interviews with Gary Lineker, Joanna Lumley, Rob Brydon and Sir Ken Dodd.

Best Use of Drama to Develop Speaking and Listening Skills King’s Hill Primary School Kings Hill Primary developed its ‘Confidence Under the Spotlight’ programme because it believes the performing arts can make a significant contribution to pupils’ development and the school’s success. The school’s Year 4 show has become a turning point for many children, with the recent production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat being no exception. All 90 children were actively involved, with pupils performing songs on bell plates and ukuleles, doing dance routines, and acting. Music played an integral role in helping children with lower literacy levels to engage with complex language; boys were able to express themselves in an environment other than the sports field; and the children were able to connect with a new shared interest. Pupils’ experiences were linked to the classroom and used in writing exercises. The school observed noticeable improvement in language development and reading confidence among lower-ability children, and a broader range of pupils engaged in classroom discussions providing real proof of the educational value of performance. Tonbridge and Malling Area Winners

Best Scheme to Excite Reluctant Readers The Hayesbrook School The Hayesbrook School’s Whole Academy Book Group had the objectives of improving sub-par reading ages and boosting the family aspect of school life. The whole school now reads together, with tutor groups functioning two to three days a week immediately after registration. Every student reads the same book at the same time, which helps create a buzz about reading and promotes discussion among pupils. Staff were trained to ensure a safe reading environment for children, to promote confidence and to normalise the acknowledgement of unfamiliar or difficult vocabulary. And the use of ‘Welcome to Nowhere’, Elizabeth Laird’s tale about a young Syrian refugee, was used to develop citizenship skills and knowledge of global affairs. The obvious impact on reading abilities has implications across the curriculum, and there has been a tangible upturn in pupils accessing the school library and carrying out additional reading activities. The school has observed particular progress with special needs and Pupil Premium children, with significant improvements in attendance and learning attitudes. Special Award

The Special Award for the Most Engaging Writing Competition The Rotary Club The Rotary Young Writer competition is a scheme designed to support and encourage imaginative and creative writing among children. There are three stages to the competition - club, district and national. It has three categories: junior, for children aged seven to 10; intermediate, for children aged 11 to 13; and senior, for those aged 14 to 17. Children are given a subject title to inspire their entries, which must be no more than 500 words. The subject for 2018 to which this award relates was ‘From a Different Perspective’. MEETS FOUR KEY TARGETS WITH OFSTED

* Council Approved

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