We are a group of 19 Literacy students at Willingdon Community School in Eastbourne who have participated in Readathon for the first time this year. We had three main aims from this project: raise money for Readathon, encourage ourselves to read for enjoyment outside of school and to inspire other students to read.

The freeing part about this project was that we could choose our own books. Some of us found the bookfinder tool by BookTrust really useful in selecting an interesting read.

Using our school twitter account was a great way to record the books we were reading and to promote Readathon fundraising. It was so exciting when an author retweeted, liked or – even better – replied to our tweets about their books.

Competitions, with book and chocolate prizes, were a great way to get the whole school involved. We devised a simplified Braille code cracking competition using a Braille font on the computer and a lateral thinking competition to encourage visual reading!

We even wrote our own poems and prose based on some of the novels we had been reading and turned them into postcards to sell to our friends and family, with all the funds raised going to Readathon.

A lunchtime Readathon event was held in the school library. Book displays of different genres were available, along with a goody bag and biscuits. What better way to spend a lunchtime than sharing your reading with others whilst helping to bring the joy of reading to children in hospital?

Taking part in Readathon has shown us that reading can change a person’s world and that we can play our role in inspiring and helping others. We worked as a team and it was so exciting to see others catch a reading buzz.

Now that the word is out, we hope to inspire more students to join us on a Readathon adventure next year!

By Literacy Students at Willingdon Community School