Farshore announces winners of its Reading for Pleasure awards

Farshore has announced the winners of its Reading for Pleasure teacher awards, which celebrate the innovative ways teachers inspire reading in the classroom. 

The awards are held in association with the Open University and the UK Literacy Association (UKLA) and are awarded in four categories. 

This year’s Community Reading Champion was Amanda Hanton from Leicestershire County Council Virtual School, which focused on hard-to-reach and vulnerable children. Judges noted that its "My Books, My Story" project made good use of reading for pleasure research and was clearly a highly effective way to engage and enthuse children, young people and their foster families with books, reading and stories. The project saw children and young people in care create an exhibition of artwork inspired by books, which was available as a pop-up exhibition in Leicester’s main shopping centre, alongside an interactive online exhibition and a travelling exhibition in community spaces. 

The School Reading Champion award was given to Lucas Maxwell from Glenthorne High School, Sutton. The judges said Maxwell engaged pupils and staff through a book award scheme which put children in control of their reading journey and as a result there has been a significant increase in book borrowing from the school library. 

Experienced Teacher was awarded to Amy Greatrex, from South Wilford Endowed C of E Primary School, Nottingham, for her work building a reading community in school as well as in the home. Highlights also included a class voting system with the use of pebbles, which offered easy involvement for young children. Sarah Bell, from The Holt Primary School in Skellingthorpe, Lincoln, was highly commended. 

The Whole School award went to both Georgie Lax at Starcross Primary, Exeter, and Claire Nelson at Cheadle Catholic Infant School, Cheadle. This is the second win for Lax after winning the Experienced Teacher category in 2021. At her school, she established a team of passionate teachers and teaching assistants from across all year groups with an aim of increasing knowledge of current and new authors, with a focus on poetry. Ensuring that every child was represented in the books they read, projects included staff adding "what I am reading" inserts to their lanyards and pairing older and younger children to become reading buddies. 

At Cheadle Catholic Infant School, Nelson helped build teachers’ knowledge of books, diversifying the range on offer and pupil book choice, and demonstrated strong engagement of parents. The judges especially loved the school’s recognition of the power of humour and laughter to engage. The school also built links with local libraries and secured authors from the local community for school visits. 

Cally Poplak, executive publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books and Farshore, said: “Judging these awards is a highlight of the year for me—this is about the strategies teachers and reading champions use to open up children’s life chances by turning them into enthusiastic readers. This is something that should be available to every child and Farshore is proud to shine a spotlight on such inspirational work.”