Gold practical ideas

Gold Reading Champions are those that make an outstanding contribution to developing the school reading culture. Commitment, consistent effort and enthusiasm to get others reading are the hallmarks of being a Gold Reading Champion.

The list of suggestions below is shorter than that for bronze and silver. This is because to achieve gold might mean completing an accumulation of bronze and silver Reading Champions tasks. The gold award is also often used as an opportunity for the boys to develop a school-wide project, or else, look at how much time has been spent on ongoing tasks, such as buddying. Although buddying is recommended as a silver activity, it could count towards the gold award if kept up by a mentor over a long period of time.

Re-enact the ‘Rocky’ montage
Get the boys to make a film of boys in school enjoying their favourite books or saying why they like them. You could edit this into a ‘Rocky’ style film clip and show it during assembly and in the foyer.

Run a Top Trumps club
Reading Champions could run a Top Trumps club. You could buy Top Trumps sets, which feature football clubs, managers and players, WWE Superstars, cars, rugby stars and more.

Premier League Reading Stars (PLRS)
Each year every Premier League football club nominates one player to be a Reading Champion and recommend two books, one for children and one for adults. Your Reading Champions could run a reading group over a number of weeks using the PLRS booklist. Find out more about PLRS.

Reading Champion corner
Designate an area of the library just for the boys, which Reading Champions could be involved in running and maintaining. If they run it over a long period of time (one school year or longer), this could mean qualification for gold Reading Champion status.

Graphic novels
Reading Champions could have their own comic strip in the school newsletter or on the school website. This could be regularly updated to create an ongoing story across the year.

Our school reads: The movie
Lend out video recording equipment to the boys and set them the task of interviewing members of the school community (pupils, teachers and wider staff) about their favourite reads. Encourage them to use a simple video-editing programme, such as Windows Movie Maker, to create a film of all of the video clips. Upload the film to the school website or play it on the screen in reception, if you have these facilities.

Internet radio programmes
Get your Reading Champions to make internet radio programmes about the school’s reading activities and recommendations that could then be podcasted out. This is a good activity to raise the profile of pupils’ reading with parents and the local community. www.radiowaves.co.uk is an example of this kind of platform.

More detailed information and ideas can be found in our comprehensive 26-page toolkit, which can be purchased as part of the Reading Champions resource pack. Find out more.