LOCAL students have been celebrating the joys of reading as part of a regional competition.

Shebbear Community School students have been getting stuck in to a variety of prose this term as part of the Summer Reading Challenge organised by Torrington Library.

The competition, which runs throughout the school summer holidays, is designed to encourage children to continue reading during the six week break. Children at Shebbear managed the highest percentage of children completing the challenge in the local area, winning the competition and were rewarded with a cup, presented by Ros Davies from the library. Tommy, who is in Year 5, won the overall individual first prize and won a Minecraft Lego set.

The children also received visits from authors as part of the Appledore Book Festival. The infant children were able to meet Sean Taylor while the Key Stage 2 pupils were given an entertaining talk by the popular author, Philip Ardagh. All of the children received a signed copy of their respective author’s book. The visits and books were kindly paid for through a councillor grant organised by the local ward councillor for Shebbear, Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin.

She attended the session with Philip Ardagh and said: “I have no doubt it will have inspired so many of those students to go on and believe in themselves and do great and wonderful things. It is these types of sessions and opportunities which children will remember and it was a pleasure to be able to support it.”

The school says that it has prioritised reading through the curriculum and believes this has been reflected in the results of recent examinations.

In 2024’s Key Stage 2 SATs, an impressive 91 per cent of the children met the expected standard and an incredible 66 per cent even exceeded the standard which was double the national average.

Headteacher at the school, Nick Alford, said: “These were amazing results and were a reflection of the school’s focus on reading over the last few years as well as the hard work of the pupils and staff.”