posted on 02 Mar 2017

We All Sleep Under The Same Stars : Illustrated Poems by Year 6 Pupils of Greenfield Primary School, Stourbridge

This booklet, produced by The Letterpress Project includes poems and illustrations produced by Year 6 Pupils and responses to the poems from a range of children's authors, poets and other commentators.

The Foreword by Peter Bravo, Headteacher of Greenfields School states:

The benefits of losing yourself in a world of stories are so significant that it would be foolish to ignore them. At Greenfield we believe reading for enjoyment is essential, so we all try to make reading and books as exciting and attractive as possible by using a variety of approaches.   We place high quality texts at the heart of our cross-curricular topics and use the very best writing to inspire our children and encourage their development in literacy.  All our classes are named after significant people, including authors.  Children who read for pleasure have enhanced levels of comprehension, an increased knowledge of grammar and show improvement in their writing.  The ability to read well and appreciate books not only helps our children to do well in their learning but also offers other important, lifelong benefits.  These include a richer vocabulary, the pleasure of reading in later life, improved general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures, people and places.

We also value the love of books and the celebration of stories. We came to hear of Karen Argent and the Letterpress Project through one of our parents, Ali Ciasullo, a student at Newman University and whose son Jack is in Year 6.  I rang Karen and during our telephone conversation we soon discovered that we shared a passionate belief in the importance of children getting their hands on and then getting into a good book. In January, Karen joined our Year 6 pupils and their teachers, Miss Phillipa Cook and Miss Cynthy Tang, using books to explore the theme of asylum seekers and refugees. 

This led to all our Year 6 boys and girls working in mixed pairs to compose these poems which generated considerable interest when they were posted on the Letterpress website. The children were really shocked to receive compliments on their writing from many children’s authors including Chris Ridell, the Children’s Laureate, and they couldn’t believe it when he actually drew a poster to accompany their poetry!  The children’s work also attracted attention in the Council of Europe and went on to receive positive comments from all over the world.

The children are very excited about this unique poetry book and genuinely surprised by and very proud of the attention their writing has attracted.  Ruby in Year 6 neatly summed up the children’s reaction: ‘I can’t quite believe it. It was just another normal writing lesson on a Friday morning’.

Exposure to excellent writing on topical themes combined with empathetic discussion and outstanding teaching has inspired our Greenfield children to produce this superb, thought-provoking creative collection, which reveals the honest insight of innocence and has the power to move people.

 

You can see the full publication on this link:RefugeelBookmaster.pdf