In its fourth consecutive year, the We Wonder reading challenge has this year reached 25,500 pupils from 400 schools across the country and a winner and runner-up has been announced from both KS2 and KS3.
What is the We Wonder reading challenge?
We Wonder is one of our free Reading Champions Challenges which aims to encourage reading diversely and fun engagement with non-fiction texts.
We established the Reading Champions Challenges with the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) to support whole-school literacy and help teachers encourage a culture of reading for pleasure. We are supported by Turner & Townsend with additional funding to run the We Wonder series.
This year we partnered once again with Turner & Townsend for a space-themed iteration of the challenge called the We Wonder: Journey into Space.
Pupils aged 7-14 were tasked with designing their own rocket and planning a journey into space after using reading resources to discover more about space.
Having a STEM themed topic this year allowed pupils who may be reluctant fiction readers to explore a new area and connect science and learning to reading for fun.
Our 2024 We wonder reading challenge winners are...
We recently announced the winners, runners-up and honourable mention pupils who particularly impressed the judges with their creative rockets and space journey designs, and the inspiration they had drawn from the texts.
In the KS2 category, Sherwin from Gifford Primary School was selected as the winner with his detailed and illustrative plan for journeying into space.
Jakub from Mayville Primary School and Dylan from Sherbourne Fields School both won the runner-up prize in the category.
Freyja from St Margaret Mary's RC Primary School and Mustafa from Grafton Primary School both received honourable mentions for also being judges' favourites.
In the KS3 category, Evelina from Hummersknott Academy took first prize, followed up by Amelia from Ysgol Dyffryn Taf.
Honourable mention prizes went to Stanley from Great Baddow High School and Ella from Cefn Hengoed Community School.
Winners Sherwin and Evelina won a book voucher each and a box of books for their entire class, and runners-up Jakub, Dylan and Amelia also won a box of books for their class.
The pupils with honourable mentions won a book each to take home and enjoy.
How can schools get involved in the next reading challenge?
We run free Reading Champions Challenges every term open to all schools, as part of our ongoing work to support teachers in creating a reading for pleasure culture in classrooms and improving children and young people's literacy skills.
To be sure you are first to hear about our reading challenges during the next school year, sign up for Resources and Training newsletter updates.
I would just like to take this opportunity to tell you that Freyja is absolutely over the moon with the comments that were made about her entry. It has been wonderful to see her grow in confidence.
Freyja's teacher, Angela