Million words challenge is a real page turner

A million words challenge set by Harewood College is helping create a community of bookworms. Here students are pictured with principal David Bromfield.

A million words challenge set by Harewood College is helping create a community of bookworms. Here students are pictured with principal David Bromfield.

A Bournemouth principal has created a community of bookworms after setting students a ‘million words’ challenge.

The first challenge set by Harewood College’s David Bromfield – was to get his academy and the other academies that make up Avonbourne Trust – to read a million words between them.

That test was smashed by the academies so now individual classes are being tasked to read a million words.

David said: “We wanted to find a way of encouraging all of our students to read more and we’ve done so by tapping into the naturally competitive nature of young people.

“First they wanted to win for their own academy and now they want to win for their classes.

“Books still play a very important part in this digital word. You can look at a picture or a moving image but nothing takes you somewhere like words do.

“A picture of an erupting volcano will show you what it looks like but the descriptive words describing a sweet, acrid, vulgar smell will really get your imagination sensing what it is like.

“Books are magical things in which you can totally immerse yourself without becoming distracted and in which your imagination takes you on a ride.”

Students across the academies are avidly reading books – both fiction and non-fiction – and recording how many words the text has included.

When they have completed the book, the number of words read is added to a total tally for their class, with each class competing to be the first to reach the magical million.

And when every classroom meets that target the final chapter in the challenge will be for individual students to read a million words.

CEO of Avonbourne Trust, Debbie Godfrey-Phaure, said: “This challenge has really inspired our students and it’s fantastic to see them fall in love with the written word.

“We place great importance in reading across our academies as it is the key to unlocking a student’s potential in English.

“The more a student reads the more their use of the English language flourishes and millions of words can contribute to a lifetime’s learning.”

 

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