Carol picks up Six Book Challenge Award for College

Carol Wootton, Subject Librarian at Doncaster College, travelled to London recently to pick up an award.

Carol, who works at the Learning Resource Centre at the College’s Hub campus, collected a certificate in recognition of the College’s achievements in this years Reading Agency’s Six Book Challenge.

This year 23,500 adults registered for the Six Book Challenge nationally, a 30% increase on 2011, and over a hundred completed the task at Doncaster College.

At the event, which marked the scheme’s first five years, children’s author Adele Parks presented a silver award to Carol and there was also a speech by author Andy McNab offering his congratulations and ongoing support. Matthew Hancock MP, Minister for Skills, was also in attendance.

Carol, who organizes the Challenge at Doncaster College, also hosted a discussion group on running the Six Book Challenge in a College.

Adele Parks said, “It's been a pleasure watching people discover reading for the first time and I've encountered a lot of under-confident and disadvantaged people who, by improving their reading skills, have drastically improved their opportunities in life."

The Reading Agency launched the Six Book Challenge in 2008 as a simple but powerful way to encourage less confident readers to develop a new reading habit. Ninety per cent of respondents in a Six Book Challenge survey said they felt more confident about reading after taking part.

Doncaster College has been involved with the scheme for three years and has an ever-growing number of participants each year.