North Berwick Nursery Teacher Joyce McIntosh and her team of four volunteers will be working flat out over the next couple of days, packing 1,200 backpack that are to be given free to every 4 year-old in East Lothian pre-school settings next month.

East Lothian Council is working with the Scottish Book Trust to create a free Explorer Backpack filled with goodies for four-year-old children to help them to move from nursery to primary with skills and confidence.  The packs are designed to encourage a love of reading in the children who receive them, and offer parents and carers lots of tips and advice about encouraging their children to read and learn at home.  This is the first scheme of its kind anywhere in Scotland.

The project builds on the success of Bookstart packs and hopes to bridge the age gap between the Bookstart Treasure Chest pack for three-year-olds and the Bookstart Booktime packs for P1 children.   1,200 four-year-olds in East Lothian will receive an Explorer Backpack.  They will also be enrolled in the Backpackers Club and invited to take up Backpackers Challenges at their local libraries.

Children at schools round the county selected the books for inclusion in the pack.  In the end, they voted unanimously for Susan Rennie’s An Animal ABC and Jill Murphy’s On the Way Home. 

Joyce and her team are filling the backpacks with these books, and also magazine offering advice and guidance to parents, a whiteboard set, and a Curriculum for Excellence leaflet.

The Explorer Backpack will be officially launched at a special event at North Berwick Community Centre by Adam Ingram MSP, Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning. 

Author Debi Gliori will also be at the event and will read from her book Stormy Weather.  Illustrations from Stormy Weather are featured throughout the parents’ magazine included in the backpack.

Joyce says:

‘It’s going to be a busy couple of days, but it will be well worth it in the end.  The earlier we can get children to read and the more support we can offer parents with encouraging reading the better.’

Education and Children’s Services Convener Peter MacKenzie says:

‘I’m really delighted that East Lothian Council is the first authority in Scotland to pilot such a scheme, because learning to love books and stories is such an important thing for any child.’