Reading Rocks

On Friday 20th November, four of our pupils went to Roade School, for the regional finals of the Kids Lit Quiz. This is an international competition which tests children's in-depth knowledge of books they have read. Curan Tahim (12), Christian White (12), Daniel Whatton (12) and Ellie Clarke (11), proved triumphant. They beat 25 other teams, in 10 rounds of fierce questions, gaining a stunning score of 82/100, to become Central England Winners.

It just goes to show that boys do read and that teamwork is crucial. How did they achieve it? They all love reading. Christian reads an average of 5 books a week and can't get enough of them. The others even had to stop him from reading the books they received as round prizes, whilst the competition was in full flow! The School's English Department has introduced a Required Reading List for those aged between 7 and 13, in order to widen the number of genres each pupil encounters, and it certainly seems to be working.

On Friday 27th November, the team headed off to Oxford for the National Finals

We arrived at Oxford Town Hall on Friday 27th November around 12.30. The team met some of the 30 authors who were there and at 1.30 they were ushered into the main hall along with 14 teams from across the United Kingdom. The hall was decorated in the purple and green colours of the Kids' Lit logo and there was a large, excited audience to give the teams a huge round of applause.

The guest of honour was Harry Enfield who treated the children to an exclusive reading from the first page of the new young James Bond book by Charlie Higson, not out until 2011! Daniel Whatton buzzed in to answer the first question of the afternoon and, thankfully, he was correct. So, for five glorious minutes we were winning! The team continued to fight valiantly and we ended the day in 8th position. During the afternoon the children got to meet more of the authors and everyone got something signed to take home as a momento. It was great fun and we look forward to next year with great confidence.