Kicking Leaves- Organising a Children's Literature Festival
An example of the final product
‘Kicking Leaves’: organising a
children’s literature festival
The 2010-11 Kicking Leaves was our fifth successful biennial festival. What makes the Kicking Leaves different from the many other festivals appearing across the country is the emphasis on professional practitioners working alongside children to develop their own writing. The writing takes place both within the classroom and in outdoor settings, from country parks to graveyards, from school grounds to historic houses. The children create new literature for their peers within school in the form of displayed work and outside school in a published anthology.
For 2011 their work has been published as a moving gallery, a mobile anthology of children’s poetry! Their work has been published on coving posters on the Mainline bus routes from Barnoldswick, Trawden and Colne, to Nelson, Burnley and Accrington, Whalley and Clitheroe. All the routes are displaying the children’s work. 300,000 people each month will view their writing! You can download the poems here.
Impact
Pupils:
- developing new successful strategies for writing
- vocabulary building & language development
- developing speaking & listening skills
- story-boarding
Teachers:
- new literacy strategies for the classroom
- new partnerships with practitioners and organisations