Yesterday I was honoured to receive the 2019 Egmont Reading for Pleasure Teacher Award, in the category of experienced teacher! The announcement was made at the OU/UKLA Finding and Sharing Pleasure in Reading Conference in London, where I also led my first workshop on The Power of Reading Aloud.

My RfP journey started little over a year ago when I met Teresa Cremin and a roomful of other hopefuls at a Teachers’ Reading Group CPD event in Camden. I entered hoping to join an existing group and left having agreed to lead one (such is the charismatic charm and magnetic influence of Teresa Cremin!). I left feeling inspired and in awe of her knowledge, boundless energy and her super-strong RfP vision. I wanted to share this vision and immeditately set about engaging with the TARs research on a much deeper level.

Since that day, I’ve been on an incredible journey of reflection and development. From realising that I desperately needed to expand my own reading repertoire, to introducing RfP strategies like comfy reading, poet-trees and daily reading aloud, it’s been a brilliant year of bookish fun, creativity and CPD. I truly believe that reading is the key with which we can unlock children’s potential and it’s been a pleasure to be involved with the Open University and UKLA teachers’ reading groups this year.

I won the RfP Teacher Award for my ‘Inspiring Reading: Media Club‘ submission, which encouraged reading for pleasure throughout the whole school through the development of our first termly magazine. So it seemed only fitting that I was presented the award by author Andy Stanton (whom I very much hope will feature in a future issue of The Canary Crunch!) and SF Said (who was featured in our Spring issue).

“We were very impressed with your entry. You have a clearly reflective and strategic approach to Reading for Pleasure and many inventive and creative projects. Your media club is inspirational and it was a real delight to read about the impact it has made. It’s clear you are absolutely dedicated to encouraging and inspiring the children to read for enjoyment. Fabulous work!”

Thank you so much to all involved, I am deeply honoured and grateful. What a day! 

More about the Egmont RfP Awards

The awards were launched last year following extensive research into reading for pleasure by Egmont and the OU and UKLA. The aim of the Egmont Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards is to demonstrate the positive impact that reading for pleasure can have on all aspects of a child’s life. By recognising and celebrating teachers who are currently putting reading for pleasure at the heart of their classrooms, it is hoped the award will serve to inspire others to use similar practices in the future.

The 2019 judges were: children’s author Andy Stanton, David Reedy from the ULKA, Teresa Cremin from the Open University, Cally Poplak and Alison David from Egmont Publishing, Fiona Evans, National Literacy Trust and Joy Court, Chair of the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Medals Review.

You can read the full awards announcement on the Open University website here.