EXCITEMENT mounts at Barnton Community Nursery and Primary School every week as children wait for the next exciting instalment of a new initiative.

Each Friday at 7pm teachers are taking it in turns to read a bedtime story on the school's Facebook page.

Headteacher Alison Lawson said: "Sharing a bedtime story is the perfect way to reach our families in their own home and promote the importance of reading with children.

"We want to engage with our pupils in a way that is exciting.

"The initiative has been particularly popular with our families, with our first story, Billy's Bucket, getting over 2000 views. "

Research shows that children who enjoy reading are five times more likely to read above the level expected for their age, compared with their peers who don’t enjoy reading.

Bedtime storytime is recorded at school but no one knows who will be reading it until children tune in.

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"Each week a different member of staff reads the story and we ask children to guess who it will be," said Mrs Lawson. "This causes great excitement and promotes our bedtime story.

"To promote reading, our curriculum is based on high quality books, which expose children to a rich variety of texts," said Mrs Lawson, who read the first bedtime story.

"It's all about reading for pleasure, engaging children in any form of literature."