WITH smart phones, tablets and consoles pretty much a standard focal point of most secondary school pupils’ relaxation time, it has become increasingly more difficult to inspire children to swap scrolling for reading a good book.
But now an English Department at a local secondary school is trying to improve literacy standards by launching a new reading initiative.
Headed up by Mr Chris Sevenoaks, Subject Leader of English at St Gregory’s Catholic School the ’16 x 16’ project has recently been launched in order to encourage pupils to pick up a book – and enjoy doing so.
Mr Sevenoaks and his colleagues at the English Department at the school on Reynolds Lane, say that the aim of the ‘16 x 16’ initiative is to ensure that all pupils will read a minimum of 16 books during their time at St Gregory’s.
“There will be four books per year for each year group to read from when they join at age 11 to when they finish their GCSEs at age 16,” a St Gregory’s spokesperson explained to the Times.
“The first books being read in the initiative include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon and Brick Lane by Monica Ali. All the books have been carefully chosen by the English Department to best reflect the level of challenge, both in terms of literacy and subject matter, which the English department wishes its pupils to encounter during their time at the school.”
Mr Sevenoaks added: “We very much look forward to introducing our pupils to these texts and this project, and to parents’ support in encouraging their child to read with both them and with us, as ‘A Place We Go When We Stay Where We Are.’” – a reference to the initiative’s slogan which appears on publicity artwork around the school.
Since the ‘16 x 16’ reading programme commenced, St Gregory’s school library has seen an average increase of over 90% in books taken out on loan in response to the scheme Mr Sevenoaks told the Times.
And in order to promote the reading project, the school’s Art department asked their Year 8 students to design a poster to support the campaign.
In addition to this, the English Department recently received a donation of £150 from the manager of the Tunbridge Wells branch of the Co-op towards the project.
Mr Paul Snow donated a fundraising cheque to Mr Sevenoaks last week and the school spokesperson said that the kind donation will be put towards the purchase of books for students undertaking the ‘16 x 16’ reading programme.
