Crawshaw Academy launches Reading Festival to prepare for 2026 National Year of Reading
2026 is The National Year of Reading, an initiative co-created by the government and by The National Literacy Society. To prepare for this, on Monday 15 September, Crawshaw Academy held its first ever Reading Festival. The aim of the day was to promote Reading for Pleasure to primary school children in the Pudsey community.
The school, led by headteacher Mr. Iain Addison who joined in January 2025, welcomed over 150 local Year 6 pupils to participate in Reading workshops run by three local authors: James Harris from Middlesbrough, Jenny York from Bradford and Daniel Ingram-Brown from Knaresbrough.
The children loved inventing new monster characters, dressing up in role, acting out stories with twists and learning about the importance of describing really vivid settings.
The primary school staff, who accompanied the children, also felt that the day had been useful. They agreed that as well as being an early introduction to ‘Big School,’ the workshops had successfully taught their pupils the art of writing a story and encouraged them that reading is good fun (a message not always easy to convey in the world of mobile phones).
The importance of Reading for Pleasure is not just being instilled in the school’s community, but in the students of Crawshaw Academy, itself. Students at the school are being treated to a brand new, bespoke version of their form time book club, in which they have the chance to read a range of extracts, watch the associated film trailers and talk about the issues that are raised. They are also creating Reading podcasts to promote their favourite books, entering a range of school-based reading competitions and watching the I Love Reading videos which many of the staff have created and posted on the school’s social media pages.
Crawshaw’s Reading drive includes the promotion of Reading for Pleasure, the incorporation of daily literacy intervention sessions for those students in need of a little support and the whole school teaching of reading strategies so that all students can access more challenging texts in their subjects. The school’s focus on Reading is not only preparing the way for The National Year of Reading, but ensures that all of its students can access its curriculum.