KS2 Young Leaders become Literacy Champions

KS2 young leaders at St Martin’s C of E Primary School, Scarborough became ‘Literacy Champions’ as part of their Archbishops’ Young Leaders Award. When thinking about how they want to bring positive change to their community they decided to raise the profile of early reading.

The pupils organised and led a range of different activities to promote reading through personal challenges at home, school activities and projects in their local community.

Individual pupils donated books to a local child minder group and many committed to reading to younger siblings at home. The young leaders also hosted a reading café at school for World Book Day where they read with younger children and shared book recommendations.

In partnership with ‘The Literacy Trust’, they made book packs which they hid around the local area for local residents to find and enjoy. Several people got in touch with the school to share how they had used the book packs and to thank the pupils for their kindness.

The young leaders also forged a new link with a local nursery where they visited to read with nursery children. This developed into a series of visits where the pupils created their own activities and props to accompany popular stories which they shared with the nursery children. The nursery are keen to continue regular visits like these in future, continuing these young leaders’ important vision to engage children in reading early.

Watch these creative and confident young leaders in action in this video: 

Their teacher shared how the pupils had “gained confidence in their own skills as leaders and realised they could be the change needed in the community.”