Mini Book Club – Y7 Transition

27 Sep Mini Book Club – Y7 Transition

Mini Book Club – Year 7 Transition has been a resounding success. We teamed up with Hachette  and Speakers for Schools to offer this free exciting activity for children as they move to secondary school. We wanted to provide a club to help build their confidence as readers and give them something in common to talk about when they start school.

‘It was interested to hear about why she wrote the book and her aspirations’ Year 7 pupil who came to the Q&A.

‘It has been so beneficial at this school, as usually reading isn’t included specifically in summer activities/transition and it really helped to put reading front and centre… I just wanted to say thanks and I hope this is something that continues!’ Ms H Swinyard, Librarian, Greig City Academy,

We put together a free resource pack based on our chosen book When Secrets Set Sail by Sita Brahmachari. The pack included editable presentations for teachers to use on induction days or in summer school, a letter for parents to explain the project and fun questions and activities for the young people to complete over the summer.

Over 140 schools signed up to take part and Hachette offered the e-book for 99p and bulk copies of the print copy for half price. We also offered a How-To Guide for teachers running Mini Book Club – Year 7 Transition. The finale event on 17 September was a live author Q&A – facilitated by Speakers for Schools. This was attended by 750 young people in assemblies with interactive polls and the chance for them to ask questions directly. 

One of the themes of the book is about home and where you feel you belong, so we asked the young people an interesting question.

 ‘Who has a relative who has come to the UK from another country?” 

The answer was 75%

 There were lots of great questions about the book, and it was clear that the young people had read it and were engaged with the story. For all the schools who joined the live Q&A Hachette are gifting two copies of Where The River Runs Gold which is a great addition to any school library.