This year’s Northern Primary School Reader’s Cup was bigger than ever with 18 schools vying for the win, and the chance to have their name added to the trophy. Thanks to Jessica Marston for this report on such a highly successful event that encourages and celebrates sustained reading.
Our Readers’ Cup event has been in action for over 20 years, thanks to Jennie Bales who first heard of the concept at a school library conference in Queensland.
This years’ books provided teams with a variety of text and theme complexity. Teams read these books over a set time frame before completing a quiz about all of the books, and a short creative response about one of the books, at their own school. Winning teams then met at Hagley Farm School after school on May the 29th for the final.
This year’s fun facts:
- A total of 369 students participated across our 18 schools.
- The highest participation was at Riverside Primary School with 56 students involved in 11 teams. 45% of these students were boys.
- We were very excited to see Flinders Island District High School join us in person for our live event, having been involved via live-stream previously.
- 42% of student feedback respondents nominated Scar Town as their favourite book, with Fantastic Mr Fox sitting on 25% and Parvana on 16%. Students reported a wide range of favourite aspects of Readers’ Cup including:
- “Getting to compete with your friends and learn new things. I also love how you can work with people that you wouldn't normally work with and then you build a relationship with them.”
- “Exploring new books that I didn't know existed.”
- “Getting to read more books and the creative challenge helped me with a little bit of my stage fright.”
- “I get to read and learn about books with my friends.”
- “The best thing is that I was able to be more communicative with others of my class.”
- “The teamwork, the creative challenge and the quiz!!!!!”
- “I liked reading and then being quizzed on the books. I also liked doing the creative challenge, it was really fun!”
At the final, teams completed an on-the-spot Extra Challenge about The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel, another quiz, and then presented their creative response to a very large audience.
Westbury Primary School students working on their Extra Challenge task.
Our 18 teams during the quiz phase of the final
Congratulations to Longford Primary School who were our 2025 winners. This was the first time Longford had won the trophy!
Our winning team from Longford Primary School
On behalf of all our participating schools I would like to acknowledge the wonderful support of the CBCA Tasmania Branch who provided Petrarch’s Bookshop vouchers to all of our participating schools, along with a first prize voucher. I would also like to thank the many volunteers, and school staff who give their own time, to make Readers’ Cup come to life every year. If you are interested in being involved, or bringing Readers’ Cup to your school, please feel free to contact me via the CBCA.
Jessica Marston
Teacher-Librarian – Hagley Farm School, Westbury Primary School
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