Henbury School pupils read to Bristol Rugby Club stars

Pupils at Henbury School were joined by Bristol Rugby Club stars yesterday supporting an initiative to promote literacy and encourage reading for enjoyment.

Bristol Rugby Community Foundation has supplied Henbury School for the past three years with matchday programmes for students to read during "silent reading" in their tutor times.

Pupils, rewarded for performing well in these reading sessions, today had the chance to read to club captain Iain Grieve and player Bryan Rennie.

The players kindly autographed the programmes and the lucky students took them home as a memento of the day.

Megan White, who co-ordinates literacy across the curriculum at the school, said:

"The backing of Bristol players helps to promote a positive image of men reading and encourages some of our students who have struggled.

"The use of Bristol Rugby matchday programmes have already proved successful and boys in particular enjoy reading them."

Miss White runs the reading project with PE teacher Jon Peach, who is also Head of Pegasus House.

Mr Peach added:

"We are delighted that Bristol Rugby has offered to send in players to listen to our pupils in Pegasus House read to them.

"In December, we had Bryan Rennie, Jonathan Goodridge and Jack Gadd visit us and today we have Iain Grieve, Captain of Bristol Rugby, and Bryan Rennnie returning.

"Last time, we had 25 pupils reading, and the feedback we had from them was that they loved it! Today we had 16 reading."

Henbury School would like to thank Tom Tainton (Bristol Rugby Media Officer) and Ben Breeze (Chief Executive Bristol Rugby Community Foundation) for their continued support in promoting literacy.