At Bacon’s College, running Readathon is way for us to state publicly and explicitly that we care about reading. It is a simple way to celebrate books visibly across the whole school.

Students and staff see the programme as a challenge to both read as much as they can, and raise as much as they can. It is the first part of a programme of work for us that will build momentum behind a whole school reading community. Once we have collected all the sponsorship money, we will be holding a special assembly where we announce how much we have raised, and launch our World Book Day Festival.

The festival will include the ‘Battle of the Books’ in which students will vote on which teacher made the best pitch for their favourite book, as well as a whole series of workshops, including opportunities to work with graphic novel artists, journalists and authors and poets. It is important that the money the students raise will go to ‘Read for Good’. It is another iteration of our belief at the school that real reading is always social. Stories are how we understand each other. I do not think there is any more meaningful or human activity than sharing a story.

Amy Lloyd

Librarian

Bacon’s College (South London Secondary School)

More people, reading more books, more of the time.