Readers Cup 2021

Students have acquired additional literacy knowledge after competing in the state's Readers Cup. Teams from Years 5 and 6 and Years 7 and 8, share their experiences having taken on the challenge.

Year 5 and Year 6 Team

Imagine flying on a dragon’s back or finding a million dollars in your backyard? It was certainly an adventure reading the five books selected for us, and many other students around the state, by the Queensland Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia. The Council organises the Readers Cup competition on an annual basis.

We enjoyed getting lost in each page and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to read different books from various genres, working together as a team and, of course, having a lot of fun coming up with potential trivia questions about each book!

We spent months preparing by gathering for weekly meetings by quizzing each other on the books in readiness for the competition against 25 other schools on the Gold Coast. Our goal was to be in the top 10 and our hard work paid off, as we placed in ninth overall. The entire team is very grateful for this opportunity!

Kaitenan Weintrop, 6S

Year 7 and Year 8 Team

Readers Cup was a fantastic experience for our team. We prepared with weekly meetings on a Tuesday at lunchtime and we also used the Social Stream on our dedicated Readers Cup Schoolbox page to quiz each other when face-to-face meetings were not possible. We thoroughly enjoyed reading the selected books and we all had our personal favourites; mine were Pirate Boy of Sydney Town and Lenny’s Book of Everything.

When the competition evening rolled around, we felt very nervous yet excited. The suspense between questions and each round added to the experience and we managed to secure fourth place in the end. We were only a half point from third place, but we were very proud of our efforts.

Readers Cup is a fantastic way to improve our literacy and collaboration skills and we hope that Somerset will come out on top next year!

Sash Kumar, Year 7