Leith school setting up online channel to read bedtime stories

Children's Author Lari Don with Kids from the pupil council at Hermitage Park Primary School. Ian Georgeson Photography

Hermitage Park Primary in Leith will launch the initiative – thought to be the first of its kind in Scotland – in the next few weeks.

Actor Elaine C Smith, a former drama teacher, will visit the school next week to record a reading of her book The Glasgow Gruffalo for the channel, which is called Coorie-in online.

Award-winning crime writer Val McDermid will read her children’s tale, My Granny is a Pirate.

Children’s author Lari Don is recording her new book The Treasure of the Loch Ness Monster and Jane Evans will share her favourite chapter from her book Vera McLuckie and the Daydream Club.

Parents and teachers at the school are also lined up to take part, with the aim of having one new story every week on the channel until the end of the school year.

Deputy head Lisa Black said: “Bedtime stories are in decline and may be facing extinction. Recent surveys suggest as much as two-thirds of children are not getting a bedtime story from their parents.

“Children from poorer backgrounds are the biggest casualties, but bedtime stories are an endangered species across all demographics.”

Ms Black said busy work schedules, childcare, parents lacking confidence in reading imaginatively and competition from technology were all factors. She said: “Parents were saying that rather than having a bedtime story, children often preferred to play on the iPad or a video game. So instead of seeing screens as a threat we thought, ‘Let’s embrace it and see if we can use it’. We’re hoping instead of getting a game on their iPad, they might sit down and listen to a story on it.

“There’s nothing better than snuggling up with a loved one and sharing a book together, for family bonding and developing early literacy skills.”

And Ms Black hopes once children enjoy listening to bedtime stories, they will want to read some themselves.

She already runs a “Coorie-in” session after school every Monday when parents join their children for a story, followed by singing and craft.

She has special responsibility at the school for closing the attainment gap.

Ms Black said: “Education trends come and go and there are different strategies, but reading for pleasure is the one thing that always helps understanding, literacy, health and wellbeing.

“If we can get children reading for pleasure, we are levelling the playing field before they even start school.”

Ms Don was full of praise for the initiative.

She said: “Of course a story on screen isn’t the same as sharing a book in person with a child at bedtime.

“But this is a creative way to harness the opportunities provided by new technology to address an issue created by the stress of modern life.

“Coorie-in will offer bedtime stories that can be enjoyed by children every night.”