Embark’s Fundraising and Events Manager Rosie Mclaughlin started recording a daily story to keep pupils entertained during the second lockdown. Rosie wanted to do something that would help her to keep in touch virtually with the children who were working so incredibly hard with their families at home and also to encourage to continue reading to improve their literacy skills and to stimulate imagination whilst in lockdown.
The Reading with Rosie videos, which are available still on Embark Federation’s youtube page were designed to encourage our children to pick up a book and have been watched hundreds of times and they even reached pupils from schools as far as Australia.
Rosie’s background is in Acting as she studied at the prestigious Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London before moving into Education.
The recordings were a real team effort with our very own Trust leader Matthew Crawford supporting some of the filming while Martin Whiteman one of our teaching assistants at Kilburn Primary School took time to edit the footage and create the intros to each book so a big shout out to Martin for all of his effort also.
Rosie said: “I thought this was a good way to ensure our pupils were still engaged with books, which can be a wonderful way to escape when we are all stuck at home. This is an unstable and anxious time for every family, so we felt it was important to reach out and provide children with a connection from outside of their homes.”
Rosie recorded some of the books from the farm where she lives to bring to life the stories with real animals and sounds.
We hope that the children enjoyed listening to the stories and that it gave the parents who were working so hard with homeschooling a five- minute break!
Please enjoy the video below with some of our favourite clips: