At St George’s Primary School Mossley, book enthusiastic pupils are helping to spark a love of reading across the school.
Known as the Reading Champions, these students have spent the year organising activities, inspiring their classmates, and celebrating books with World Book Day providing the perfect moment to showcase their work
The Reading Champions initiative is part of a programme run by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, encouraging schools to raise the profile of reading and inspire children to pick up a book.
Deputy Head Teacher Miss Walker, who leads the project at St George’s, explained how the children became involved.
“Reading Champions is actually a Tameside initiative run by the English department,” she said. “We ask children to apply by filling out an application form explaining why they should be a Reading Champion and creating a poster about why reading is important.”
The response was overwhelming.
“There are only supposed to be two per class, but so many children applied and were so passionate about reading that we extended it. We now have 16 Reading Champions across the school who have been involved in lots of activities.”
Throughout the year the champions have organised book fairs, created book reviews and posters, held meetings with other schools, and even run a lunchtime reading club where older pupils read with younger children.
“They’ve also carried out questionnaires with their peers and helped choose new books for class libraries,” Miss Walker added. “They’ve been the pioneers of reading activities in school.”
The champions played a key role in this year’s World Book Day celebrations. Pupils across the school dressed up as their favourite characters, visited the library, and enjoyed a range of book-themed activities.
The highlight came when the Reading Champions delivered brand-new books to each class.
Using funds raised from book fairs, the school had built up £400 to spend on books chosen by the pupils themselves.
“The children asked their classes what books they wanted on their reading shelves,” said Miss Walker. “They then went shopping, and when the books arrived they were gift-wrapped. The Reading Champions delivered them to each class a bit like Santa- it created a lot of excitement.”
Each champion brings their own love of reading and enthusiasm to the role.
Hosna says she has enjoyed helping with assemblies. Her favourite book is The Brilliant World of Tom Gates, and she dressed as Matilda for World Book Day.
Ada also loves being involved in reading activities. “We’ve done lots of different reading activities,” she said. Her favourite book is Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and she came to school dressed as Mulan.
For Esme, sharing reading with younger pupils has been a highlight.
“One thing I love about Reading Champions is our reading buddies club with Daisy Class,” she said. “I also love doing assemblies — I just love standing up at the front and showing everyone myself.”
Esme enjoys books related to Taylor Swift and celebrates World Book Day in her pyjamas. She explained that to become a Reading Champion she designed a poster showing “a world reading a book with a pencil.”
Saffron particularly enjoys helping at book fairs.
“One thing I love is not just buying and selling books, but doing questionnaires with other people,” she said.
She believes enjoying reading is essential for the role and designed a poster featuring “a bookshelf with books coming off.” Her favourite book is Northern Lights, and she dressed as Alice in Wonderland.
Katherine says her favourite part of being a champion is taking part in assemblies and the book fair. She loves reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and wore Grinch-themed pyjamas on World Book Day.
For Cole, working with younger pupils has been especially rewarding.
“One thing I love about being a Reading Champion is that we do really fun activities like assemblies and reading with the little kids,” he said.
His favourite book is Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and he dressed as the Gingerbread Man.
The champions’ work is far from over. Their next project is to create interactive displays about their favourite authors. These displays may feature writers such as Jeff Kinney, J. K. Rowling, or Dav Pilkey.
The pupils will design posters, decorations and even 3D elements to make the displays engaging for other children around the school.
For Miss Walker, the most rewarding part of the programme is seeing children inspire each other.
“Teachers try every day to encourage reading, but more recently fewer children are picking up books because they’re spending more time online,” she said.
“What’s been lovely is seeing the children themselves inspiring their peers to read. Their passion is infectious. The younger children especially love reading with the older Reading Champions.”
Thanks to their enthusiasm, the Reading Champions at St George’s are proving that the joy of reading can still capture young imaginations one book at a time.