Media centre
National Literacy Trust and Puffin launch free football resources and competition to kick off new football season
13 Sep 2010
The National Literacy Trust and Tom Palmer, author of the Foul Play football series, have teamed up again to develop free literacy resources for teachers and literacy professionals to celebrate the start of the new football season.
Tom Palmer will be reading the first paragraph of an exciting football mystery tale via a video message on the National Literacy Trust website to launch a new story writing competition. The competition is open for all schools and asks pupils to finish a story, started by Tom. There are fantastic prizes up for grabs, including the chance to have a character named after the winner in Tom’s new book series.
The brand new resources will include:
- A set of free stories to be read aloud in classrooms aimed at three different age groups, including one cliffhanger five-part story for use over one week.
- A new toolkit of ideas to use football to promote reading, including games, book groups and events.
- A set of new football writing exercises, using familiar forms of football reading, such as match reports and magazine profiles.
- A national writing competition to finish the beginning of a story started by Tom Palmer. Prizes include a school visit by Tom and hundreds of his books. There is even the chance to have a character in a book from Tom’s 2012 series named after the winner.
The resources will be aimed at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 classes (7-14 year olds) in schools, public libraries and Playing for Success centres.
Over the summer the National Literacy Trust witnessed a huge number of teachers downloading the football World Cup toolkit reading resource – scoring a goal with both students and teachers alike. The resource, Love Football: Love Reading, included games and activities to promote reading to young people using the excitement surrounding the World Cup. Due to its popularity, these exciting new football resources have been developed.
Jim Sells, National Literacy Trust, says:
“We were overwhelmed by the sheer number of downloads and the positive response we received following the launch of the World Cup toolkit. Tom’s daily episodic story, the World Cup Mystery, was uploaded on our website every day for teachers to read to their pupils in class, and proved to be a hit. So, due to popular demand the resources are back! We hope they will help encourage and inspire young people to develop a love of reading and writing in schools and libraries throughout the country.”
Diane Baker of Ghyllgrove Junior School in Basildon, says:
“The World Cup story proved to be an outstanding classroom read before the summer break. The supporting writing exercises and reading activities were great too. We are very much looking forward to using the new materials when we get back to school.”
The new resources will be live from 15 September with a link from www.tompalmer.co.uk taking teachers and librarians to a dedicated section of the National Literacy Trust website.
