Wondering what it’s like to run Readathon in school? Here are a few English teachers chatting about the experience in their school…

English Leader Victoria Collier shares her experience of taking part in the Manchester Citywide Readathon.

At Old Moat, we took part in the Manchester Citywide Readathon because it was a great way to encourage reading and talking about reading. We also managed to raise money for children in hospital. Our children rose to the challenge and did lots of extra reading, and our teachers and parents helped them with this in and out of school.  

In KS1, the children had star charts to show how many books they had read for Readathon, and they celebrated the Manchester-wide Drop Everything and Read at the end of our Readathon with a big read outside.  

We loved taking part in Readathon and we loved the thought of lots of people across Manchester Dropping Everything and Reading with us!

Affia Iqbal, English Teacher at Westwood High in Oldham explains how running Readathon helps in an area with the poorest literacy rate in the UK

Read for Good was a wonderful success last year for our school. The girls love understanding where their money goes and some of them can really empathise with the idea of being in hospital and getting bored. 

As staff, we love the idea of reading to raise money, because it helps motivate the girls to read more. Oldham has the poorest literacy rate in the whole of the UK, so this initiative really helps to motivate the girls and encourages them to pick up a book. The girls are challenged to broaden their choice of reading and last year we used envelopes to put books in, so the girls had no idea which book they were about to read! Surprisingly, the majority of the girls continued reading the same book after initially admitting they would have never chosen it based on the title or cover..

Melanie Bell, English teacher at Lagan College in Belfast tells us about the school’s Fourteenth Readathon and the school’s visit from Read for Good storyteller Steve Lally! 

For the fourteenth year running, Lagan College pupils eagerly participated in the Readathon challenge, even participating in ‘Extreme Reading’!  Year 8 pupils were excused from regular English lessons, in favour of reading.  The pupils read books and got sponsored to do it!   Combining a love of reading with raising money for charity proved extremely beneficial this year for English students.

Steve Lally, professional Read for Good storyteller at The Royal Victoria Hospital, kindly agreed to come and receive the cheque and to stay and conduct a Storytelling Workshop with Year 8.  Steve spoke of how our contribution would continue funding professional storytellers and brand new books for very sick children.  He relayed anecdotes of how his work has supported children and families during very dark times.  We were also highly entertained by Steve’s stories and didgeridoo playing accompanied by Year 8 volunteer musicians! Steve was overwhelmed with the magnificent amount Lagan pupils had raised – £4317.85 and congratulated us warmly. Over the last fourteen years, pupils at Lagan College have raised over £49,700 via Readathon – a fabulous achievement!