Harnessing pupil power to promote reading for pleasure - Bryony Cotton at Russell Scott Primary School

August 31st 2020

Bryony Cotton, Y6 teacher, Oracy and SPAG lead and part of the literacy team shares what they do at Russell Scott Primary School in Manchester to develop a reading culture amongst their pupils.

Reading for pleasure has been a longstanding priority at our school and this is probably the case in every school in the country. We all know why it is at the top of every school’s agenda: links between reading for pleasure and academic development are clear, but for us, the holistic development that can come from reading and often quite simply the escapism that it can provide for our pupils is why our drive for reading is relentless.

In my classroom, I know there is nothing more powerful than a recommendation from me or a parcel of books arriving which I deliberately open slowly as the children crowd round! Enthusiasm for reading in a school is infectious. However, a reading culture is built on a reading community: it isn’t enough for a school to be brimming with passionate adult readers so we gave lots of the power back to our pupils in the form of a Book Council. They have revolutionised reading at our school - we have seen exciting initiatives and a renewed enthusiasm for reading across school.

Each class from Year 3-6 has 2 representatives that have to complete an application form to be considered which from the start helps to instil the idea that the role is prestigious and filled with responsibility. We are not necessarily looking for the ‘best’ readers, but those who show the most enthusiasm. We have had a Book Council for about 4 years now and I could write pages about what we have done but here’s a roundup of our most successful initiatives (one of which is having a Book Council) – some of these were original ideas by the children, others were ideas suggested by staff or inspired by other schools but most importantly all of these are ideas that are driven, discussed and refined by Book Council.

• Shared texts on World Book Day: like many schools, we celebrate World Book Day and proudly dress up as our favourite characters. We also run other competitions such as designing a book in a shoe box or book on a wooden spoon: our prizes are always books! We know though that World Book Day is more than the crafty competitions; every year we select a book that every class will receive a copy of and base their learning around for the day (or week!). Most recently we used the incredible ‘A Child of Books’ by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston to highlight the impact books can have.

• Book presents: just like we do for World Book Day, we regularly buy books and gift copies to each class. Classes base their learning around the book at their level and this shared experience bonds us as a reading community. For Christmas, we bought every class a copy of the Snowman by Raymond Briggs to devour and read over the cosy interactive whiteboard fire!

• Book Trips:  If you need to see pure joy in action, take your children on a book buying trip! We have taken Book Council on a number of memorable trips to local independent bookshops: we give them a budget in advance and they ensure they discuss wish lists with their classes – then we let them loose! We end up coming back to school with books the children are proud to have picked, can recommend to their friends and that we know ‘fit the bill’ based on pupil voice.

• Book swaps: the idea is simple but the enthusiasm is tangible on a book swap day! We ask the children to bring in books from home that they’d like to donate and we give them tokens which they can exchange for books that other pupils have bought in. We do sometimes supplement the selection with new titles so that there’s lots of choice for all pupils. 

• Hot chocolate in the library:  sometimes our turn out at events wasn’t what we’d have liked. We decided that people couldn’t refuse a hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream so we now host a library open event every half term where our community is invited in after school to browse the library and spend time in a cosy spot around school sharing a book over a hot chocolate. Turn out for this event has been super each time – it’s lovely to see children and adults sharing stories and spending quality time reading together.

• Reading Raffle: Book Council decided they wanted a way to praise good reading behaviours so they developed the concept of a reading reward system: they created the tokens and the criteria and then every term, lucky pupils are picked and win a book of their choice! It isn’t just the staff that can give out tokens, the Book Council have the power too and love encouraging their peers to earn tokens by setting a good example themselves.

• Reading assemblies:  the simple joy of sharing a book cannot be overlooked. Although it isn’t ground-breaking, sharing a story in assembly in KS2 has really helped capture some of our more reluctant readers. We make the sessions as interactive as possible: seating isn’t like in a ‘traditional assembly’ and we use lighting, props and sound effects to bring the books to life. Book selection is key and we’ve had particular success with the deliciously creepy Watertower (Gary Crew) and beautiful Lights on Cotton Rock (David Litchfield). The amount of hands that shoot up to borrow these books after is incredible – so much so, we have to buy lots of copies of each book for a dedicated ‘assembly’ slot in our library.

We’re so proud of Book Council: they are really helping to shape the reading for pleasure culture at Russell Scott – the pupils regularly think of things that we don’t! My favourite memory of Book council this year was when 2 dedicated members worked on this box at home – they decided we needed a book hospital and hand made a box for repairs as well as monitoring the box and conducting the repairs themselves!

We want all of our children to have a passion for reading and we know that children need role models and careful recommendations as part of that process: what better way to ignite their spark than to be inspired by their fabulous Book Council classmates! Check out our reading blog for more information about what we do to promote reading for pleasure: http://reading.russellscottblogs.net/.

Bryony Cotton is an experienced Y6 teacher, Oracy and SPAG lead and part of the literacy team at Russell Scott Primary School in Manchester. She is passionate about ensuring the right books get into the right hands to create a life-long love of reading. Her current favourite children’s book is Pages and Co, as it 'sums up perfectly the magic of reading'.

Follow Bryony on Twitter @MissCotton92 and check out Russell Scott Primary's reading blog here.