It’s been a busy summer and looks to be an even busier few months ahead for the team at Bookfest…

In August, one of the Bookfest team cycled over a thousand miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats and as well as developing more blisters than she ever imagined, also raised over £3,000 for our next schools reading project!

We changed our name…slightly.

And now teachers are buzzing with excitement to join our next reading for pleasure project for primary schools – BOOK AWARD 2022.

As teachers and pupils return to the classroom at the start of the new academic year and remember what it’s like to sit next to friends, eat lunch together and play freely in the playground, there is an understandable anxiety about what has happened during the pandemic and what lies ahead.  

Each of the six previous Book Award projects have had a clear and major positive impact on children’s attitudes to reading. But we sensed that our next project – BOOK AWARD 2022 – was going to be more important than ever before as teachers and pupils craved something in their classrooms that would get children together after so many months apart and so much disruption to their learning  – collaborating, sharing their responses to the books they are reading, discussing and making their voices and opinions HEARD.

Apart from generating a buzz about books and reading, Book Award also gives children loads of opportunities to respond creatively to the books they read through art, drama and their own writing. This year, we wanted to offer schools extra support with using drama – particularly as this is currently a key focus for Ofsted. We are therefore thrilled to be teaming up with the brilliant Shropshire-based theatre company, Pentabus.  Pentabus will design and produce bespoke drama workshops on a series of topics to bring children together to produce collaborative creative responses to the shortlisted books on the Book Award project.

But of course all of this costs money.  There are thousands of books for children to be purchased, teaching support materials to be produced, workshops to organise, experts to be brought in to share their skills and knowledge.  But it’s worth it.  Each of the six previous Book Award projects have had a clear and major positive impact on children’s attitudes to reading.

Book Award typically costs about £40,000 to run for around 40 primary schools who take part, to which the schools contribute around 50%.  This leaves quite a shortfall, BUT luckily we are a fit team here at Bookfest – especially Sophie Peach, our Chair of Trustees. She decided that rather than sit at her desk all summer to write funding applications to trusts and foundations, she would get on her bike and cycle the length of the UK to raise money for Book Award 2022.

After 14 days in the saddle (ouch!) cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, over £3000 had flooded in. The budget was set and Book Award 2022 came alive.

Not surprisingly, we now find ourselves being swamped with requests from primary schools across the county to book their pupils onto Book Award 2022.

It is a joy to behold the enthusiasm, hunger and energy flooding in from these schools, who have had so much upheaval over the last year or so, and we are looking forward to a truly special and exciting Book Award 2022 project.

This is a wonderful start under our new name – SHROPSHIRE Bookfest – which truly reflects the reach of our work across the county and our aim to embrace as many primary schools as possible within the boundary.