St Richard's readers

Pupils from St. Richard's Catholic College have been involved in two reading projects aimed at encouraging young people to enjoy reading.

Thirteen of them joined more than 300 youngsters from over 30 schools with authors, librarians and invited guests who gathered together at Roedean School Brighton for the Southern Schools Book Award.

The SSBA is an award in which pupils read books written by a short list of authors, write reviews which are put on the internet and then vote to decide who wins.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The St. Richard's pupils were then invited to Roedean for the award ceremony.

The winner of the 2008 award was "Frozen Fire" by Tim Bowler. Highly commended was "The Angel Collector" by Bali Rai.

Year 9 pupil Rosie Matt wrote a report in which she says "attending Roedean is the highlight of the whole award process and great fun."

Rosie also described the enjoyment of hearing from and meeting the short-listed authors at the award ceremony and having the opportunity to ask them questions:

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She commented: "After reading a short passage from their book it was question time. Each author had a question from a different school. Our question was put to F.E. Higgins. It was very interesting to hear about the books we had read and enjoyed."

Now in its second year, the 1066 Schools' Book Award 2009 has been put together by a group of Secondary School Librarians to encourage and promote reading of fiction books amongst young people in 1066 schools.

Fifty-one pupils from St.Richard's enjoyed a lunchtime of activities discussing the shortlisted books last week.

Participating schools are Bexhill High School, Claverham Community College, Filsham Valley School, The Grove, Helenswood, Hillcrest and St. Richard's Catholic College. Between January and March 2009, the titles on the short-list will be read by reading groups across the seven participating 1066 schools.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A winner will then be chosen by the pupils who will vote for their favourite book. The views and opinions on each of the books will be shared with the reading groups from all the schools taking part and reviews will be posted on the 1066 Schools' Book Award website. The votes will be counted up and the winning title will be awarded the 1066 Schools' Book Award 2009 via video conference link involving all the participating schools on Thursday 12th March.