School staff helping to boost literacy levels of pupils through engaging schemes will have a chance to meet humanitarian Terry Waite at the Kent Literacy Awards.

Mr Waite CBE will be the special guest at the annual awards which celebrate the variety of innovative ways literacy leaders and school management teams boost reading, writing, speaking and listening skills of students.

Mr Waite is a passionate advocate of reading and is best known as the former special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was held hostage for a number of years in Lebanon after trying to secure the release of journalist John McCarthy.

Simon Dolby from the KM Charity Team, which organises the Kent Literacy Awards, has written to 700 head teachers and said: “I need your help to ensure Terry’s visit to Kent and involvement in the Kent Literacy Awards is a showstopper. Please could you submit a nomination to let me know what ideas, innovations, tips and tricks you are using to engage students with literacy.

“Whether this is linked to IT – perhaps you use tablets as that is more likely to engage the boys, or how you use World Book Day to encourage reading for pleasure, have introduced competitions or jazzed up your library – or perhaps you have introduced extreme reading with unusual locations to read a good book the theme of your drive?”

The judging panel includes representatives of Orbit housing association, Whitefriars, Beanstalk, Tribeca Technology Group, Golding Vision (part of Golding Homes), KM Facilities Management, Kent County Council, Reed Education, DDS Environmental, McCabe Ford Williams, Hempstead House hotel, Specsavers, Medway Council, and the London Borough of Bexley.

Nominations can be submitted online at www.kentliteracyawards.co.uk.