It’s a full house for our readers!

One of the advantages of having our infants and juniors on the same site as the Senior School is that we can easily share popular initiatives across the school. A great example of this is Book Bingo, the brainchild of one of our previous Patrons of Reading, Non Pratt.

Our Patrons of Reading continue to actively champion Book Bingo, regularly adding their own ideas for categories and Senior School Librarian, Mrs Harding, has seen the initiative take off since it was introduced a few years ago.

She said: “Book Bingo is a fun way to encourage young people to read more widely. All infant and junior pupils are given a bingo sheet where each square is a different category of book.

In Willow Lodge, it includes fun categories such as a book with a dragon on the cover and a book from the year you were born. 

In Junior School, categories include a book of poems and a book longer than 400 pages. Even as the books they read get longer, I’m always amazed at how quickly the pupils complete their sheets!”

Mrs Harding visits Willow Lodge and Junior School weekly to check on pupils’ progress and is always delighted by the response she receives, with more than one enthusiastic reader often exclaiming that “Book Bingo is my favourite thing!”

For every line that pupils complete, they receive a prize from Mrs Harding’s tin, and can claim an extra prize for completing a full house.

Mrs Harding has already congratulated a number of pupils on their completed their sheets this term, all of whom were excited to choose their prizes. Each completed sheet has also been entered into a draw to win a book. 

Mrs Harding also recently rolled out Book Bingo to staff, who were keen to get their share of the action!

Despite only launching a few weeks ago, we celebrated the first full house last week. Congratulations to Mrs Bestow, our Junior School Librarian, who chose a £5 book token as her prize. Mrs Bestow also received this message from Sarah Crossan, our Patron of Reading:

“Reading staff create reading pupils so this is incredible – well done. I can’t wait to visit next year.”

Enjoy the gallery of readers who have recently completed their Book Bingo sheets (including Mrs Bestow!):