Penns Primary School in Sutton Coldfield has just been announced winner of the West Midland’s One Million Minutes challenge! Over 2,900 children from primary schools across the county picked up their books in a contest to see which class could read for the most minutes in just one week.
The challenge, run by award-winning education charity Achievement for All, took place on Wednesday 11th November-Wednesday 18th November and involved 98 classes, making it the biggest ever reading challenge to hit the West Midlands.
Year 6 from Penns Primary raced to the top of the leaderboard clocking up a staggering 17,449 minutes and will now be presented with their prize – a beautiful reading corner packed full of books worth £1,000, courtesy of Peters Books & Furniture.
All 2,900 children involved in the challenge from across the West Midlands read for a combined total of a spectacular 329,443 minutes.
Claire Rollason, proud Year 6 class teacher and Literacy Leader at Penns Primary said: “The children have been so enthusiastic and desperate to read all week long!”
Mustafaa Ahmed, a Year 6 pupil, said: “Although the challenge was tough, I am so ecstatic to have won!”
Liyah Aulakh said: “I LOVE reading and this challenge has motivated me to read EVEN more!”
Zak O’Byrne said: “I love reading too – this was our perfect challenge!”
One Million Minutes is a national campaign making its way across the country to encourage children to read, following research that reading for just ten minutes a day can have a huge impact on a child’s education.
A quarter of all children leave primary education without reading well and in England, struggling to read is more closely linked to low pay and the risk of being unemployed than in any other developed country.[1]
CEO and founder of Achievement for All, Professor Sonia Blandford, said:
“We developed One Million Minutes to highlight the importance of reading to parents and encourage children to pick up a book and really enjoy reading. So far the challenge has been in Somerset, Berkshire, Nottingham & Derby, Wiltshire and now Lancashire and the West Midlands. We were overwhelmed with the level of engagement from schools in the West Midlands – It’s superb that so many wanted to get involved and we are delighted that children, parents and teachers all thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.
“A huge congratulations to Penns Primary for winning the West Midlands leg of One Million Minutes, we hope they enjoy their prize – I am sure they will make good use of it! I’d also like to say a massive congratulations to all the schools who signed up to the challenge. It’s been great to watch the leaderboard and see how classes have been progressing. Every single one read a significant amount of minutes and that should be celebrated. We hope that although the week is over, that the challenge has gone some way to instil a lifelong passion for reading.”
Achievement for All is one of a coalition of charities leading the Read On. Get On. campaign to get every child reading well by the age of 11 by 2025.
