A secondary school in Canterbury has been chosen to pilot an innovative new literacy initiative.

Spires Academy, Canterbury became the first secondary school to take part in the popular literacy scheme Busters Book Club.

Nationally there is an issue with some primary school children moving onto secondary school and not being adequately equipped with reading and writing skills needed to make the most of their education.

Alison Cole Vice Principal of Spires Academy said “The reason we want to do this is it is our experience that children read less and less as they come into secondary school and with the demands of the new curriculum we are actually asking them to read more and more.”

Waterstones of Canterbury invited children from Spires Academy to their inspirational Rose Lane branch to launch the scheme. Participating children were invited to choose a range of books from the store to be used in school as part of the project.

Store manager Howard Monks said: “We find that readers are very engaged from a young age and when they get to secondary school it starts to tail off, so this is a great way to help prevent this trend. We think pupils are more likely to read books they have chosen themselves so we are delighted to host the students here today.”

The KM Charity Team is well known for its literacy work in primary schools with more than 26,000 Kent school children and families already signed up to use the successful home reading initiative in 2017. Adding secondary school services to the portfolio will enable the unique triple challenge component of the programme to engage even more children and families to read – this includes a weekly reading class of the week award, a monthly inter-school challenge offering leisure attraction vouchers as prizes and an annual collaborative attempt to turn participating children into reading millionaires.

Busters Book club is a flagship feature of KM Year of Reading and is supported by Kent County Council, Medway Council, Kent Libraries, 3Rs teacher recruitment, Kent Reliance, Specsavers, Bel UK, Orbit housing association and Golding Homes.

For more information visit – www.bustersbookclub.co.uk