Jeremy Strong launches Read for My School at The Telegraph Bath Festival of Children's Literature

1 October 2012

National schools reading competition to encourage reading for pleasure

100,000 free books for schools to be donated by Pearson

Read for My School, the brand new national schools reading competition from The Pearson Foundation and Booktrust, with support from the Department for Education, launched today (Monday 1 October). Children's author Jeremy Strong introduced the scheme to a class of local school children from Oldfield Park Junior School at The Telegraph Bath Festival of Children's Literature.

Aimed at children in years 5 and 6 in its first year, Read for My School is being offered for free to all primary schools in England. The competitive element of the programme is designed to be fun and motivate children of all abilities with a variety of interests to read for pleasure. It will also give children the opportunity to read their way to rewards for themselves and their schools.

All schools who take part in the competition will be in with a chance of winning a substantial donation of fantastic books from a pot of 100,000 titles provided by Pearson.

Speaking at the event in Bath's Guildhall, Jeremy Strongsaid:

I'm really lucky that my work as a children's author takes me into schools up and down the country. And what always strikes me when I talk to children that read a lot is that they do so because it's fun. I wouldn't sell many books if children were only reading because it was useful or because they'd been told to by their teacher. Read for My School is a brilliant initiative because it's based on the idea that the more you enjoy reading - the more it inspires you, makes you guffaw, or cry, or exclaim, or scratch your head - the more you'll want to read.

Along with the official speeches about Read for My School, the event saw 30 pupils from Oldfield Park Junior School perform poems they had written about the fun of reading and around the eight categories that children will read books from when they take part in the competition next January. The audience helped to select the winning group of performers who were awarded with signed copies of Jeremy Strong's book Cartoon Kid.

All primary schools in England are invited to register from today for the competition. Children who attend participating schools will be encouraged to read as much as they can, explore a variety of genres and formats, make their own choices as readers and recommend titles to friends. Reading for pleasure is at the heart of the initiative, which aims to generate excitement about books and cultivate long-lasting positive attitudes towards reading.

Elizabeth Truss MP, Education and Childcare Minister:

This is a fantastic competition. It is important that we encourage more young people to read outside the classroom: reading for personal enjoyment enables children to practise their literacy skills and explore a wide variety of new and classic books. A national contest will motivate pupils to read and promote a lifelong habit of reading for all participants. I'm therefore delighted to be able to support the launch of this new competition encouraging pupils to pick up a book - Read for My School.

How the competition works

Participating children will be challenged to read as many books as they can from eight different categories between 21 January and 22 March 2013.
Read for My School will provide a library of books for each category, all of which will be freely available to read on screen via the competition website www.readformyschool.co.uk. Alternatively children may choose to read any book offline, as long as it fits the relevant category.
Children will log what they have read on the website, receiving virtual rewards and being entered for prize draws based on the number of books they have read.
Each school will be invited to nominate children for regional and national awards.
All registered schools will be entered into a prize draw to receive a donation of books from a pot of 100,000 titles provided by Pearson.

The eight categories are designed to introduce children to as wide a variety of genres as possible through the competition. They are: Historical Hits (tales to take you back in time); It's a Mystery (thrillers, whodunits and spooky stories); Keep it Real (books to fill your brain with facts); Laugh out Loud (rip-roaringly funny reads); Stars of the Screen (books featuring characters from film and TV); Thrill Seekers (amazing adventure stories); Out of this World (titles with a touch of sci-fi, fantasy or magic) and Wild Thing (tales of animal antics).

Key dates

From 1 October 2012: all primary schools in England will be invited to register on the official Read for My School website
Spring term 2013: all pupils in years 5 and 6 who attend a participating school will be invited to sign-up and set up an online profile
21 January 2013: the competition commences
22 March 2013: the competition closes

More about Read for My School

The official Read for My School website