Following the meeting of the literacy forum yesterday I thought I’d share with you a couple of useful websites that were suggested to support children’s writing through competitions.

The Scottish Book Trust have an ongoing 50 word fiction competition, where they provide a monthly prompt on a different topic – it’s then up to pupils to decide where to take it. There are categories for all-age Gaelic writers, young writers 5-11, young writers 12-18 and adult writers with prizes in each category. The current topic is fireworks with a deadline of Tuesday 29^th January. For more details visit: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/the-50-word-fiction-competition

Young Writers is a website which gives links to a wide range of competitions for primary and secondary pupils. There are also book reviews, activities and games as well as supportive lesson plans. This site can be accessed at: https://youngwriters.co.uk/index

The Scottish Book Trust have lots of ideas to support Scottish Book Week – why not have a reading lunch on Thursday or vote for your favourite rebellious book? Remember that P1,2 & 3s get free books this week and there are lots of resources to support the gifting of these and to engage parents in partnership for learning. For more details visit the Scottish Book Trust site at http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-scotland

Book Week Scotland is on its way! The Scottish Book Trust have lots of ideas and resources to help you make the most of it. Access their site here.

If you’re 14-17 and living in Scotland, the Scottish Book Trust is offering free, expenses paid support for budding writers and illustrators. For mroe information and to apply go to

https://www.thestoryis.co.uk/applyhome/?utm_source=Scottish+Book+Trust+eUpdates&utm_campaign=31bdd1dd00-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_17_11_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4566345a8c-31bdd1dd00-81333753

Why not invite an author into your school this session?

Applications for funding from the Scottish Book Trust for author visits taking place between 1 Jan and 31 March 2019 are now open. SBT pays the author’s fee, travel and accommodation expenses while you pay a set rate of £90. The deadline for funding applications is noon on Wednesday 19^th September. For more information visit The Scottish Book Trust

Welcome back and I hope everyone had a well-deserved rest over the summer holidays. Monday 13th August saw a really well attended in-service day for P1 practitioners in which the expectations for literacy and numeracy in P1 were explored. The current P1 literacy guidance, its accompanying teachers’ toolkit (almost completed) and resources to support all elements of the document can be found under the drop down menu, The early acquisition of literacy. Many thanks to everyone who came for the positive feedback and for your contributions on the day. I hope the start of term goes well for you all.

Argyll and Bute hs created a document which shows the progressions within the tools for writing Benchmarks,  split into relevant areas such as spelling, punctuation and so on.  This is to support the evaluation of pupil work against a level as well as to help teachers understand what needs to be covered at which stages. The document can be found under staff/sharing good practice / Benchmarks as well as being accessed here.

There are grants of £350 available from the Scottish Book Trust to support schools in purchasing books, inviting authors into school or organising one-off events during Book Week Scotland (19^th – 25^th November). This year there is a Rebel theme and there also needs to be an intergenerational element. For further details, please contact Kelsey.jubin@scottishbooktrust.com

The National Library of Scotland has resources to support language and literature including a primary resource on fairytales, video interviews with 3 leading Scottish science fiction writers, resources on forgotten women writers and getting started with Shakespeare. These can be accessed through staff/sharing good practice / reading or by following this link: https://www.nls.uk/learning-zone/literature-and-language

The National Literacy Trust have produced a series of free downloadable resources to support writing in the upper years of primary, focused around the 2018 FIFA world cup in Russia. There’s a challenge for pupils supported by a teaching resource, handouts for pupils, a poster for your classroom, bookmarks and a certificate to celebrate achievement. Follow this link to access more information and the resources: https://literacytrust.org.uk/resources/world-cup-football-school-writing-resources-primary-schools/?mc_cid=7402fc8228&mc_eid=d2642508a6