National charity runs Friendship Book Competition in a bid to promote reading and creativity

Wednesday 6 June - Schoolfriend etc, the only national charitable provider of extended school childcare in schools, today announces the results of its first national book competition. The competition, to create a ‘Friendship Book’, was open to all of Schoolfriend’s 700 after-school, breakfast and holiday clubs across the UK.

The book competition, which ran throughout the Autumn term, was held in a bid to promote reading and help children foster a love of books. Every child at each Schoolfriend Club produced a page for the book on the theme of friendship. The format was not restricted and submissions included poems, stories, paintings and collages.

The five winning teams, selected by a panel of judges, have been awarded a specially selected "Bookwise" collection for their school which consists of over one hundred story and poetry books. In addition to the book collection, every child from a winning club received an illustrated book of short stories and the clubs were presented with a certificate to display at their school. Representatives from all the winning teams will also be taken on a tour of the House of Commons at the end of the Summer term.

Amanda Argent, Chief Executive of Schoolfriend etc, commented: "We were absolutely thrilled with the inspiring and creative entries. The clubs were extremely enthusiastic about this competition and children enjoyed working together to create incredibly diverse entries surrounding the friendship theme. Our congratulations go to the winning clubs. We are grateful to the Lowy Mitchell Foundation for their generous sponsorship of the prize from which the schools will benefit greatly."

Lady Mitchell, who sponsored the Bookwise Collections donated to the winning schools, said "We were most impressed to see the huge amount of talent on display in all the marvellous friendship books sent in by a huge number of clubs. It also looked as though the children had thoroughly enjoyed working on the project. It was very hard indeed to choose the winning entry! Judging by the quality of all the work we saw, our books will find happy homes in schools all around the UK. We would like to give away many more Bookwise collections in the future".

A selection of competition entries are available to view on the photo gallery of the Schoolfriend etc website: http://www.schoolfriendetc.org/sf/gallery/book_competition_2007.html

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NOTES TO EDITORS

Schoolfriend etc

• Schoolfriend etc provides high quality, affordable childcare in schools across the UK
• It has been running after-school, breakfast and holiday clubs since 2003 and is the only national provider of childcare in the country, running over 700 clubs nationwide
• It operates in 72 out of the 150 Local Authorities servicing over 160,000 primary school children
• Schoolfriend Clubs assist schools in fulfilling the Government’s Extended Schools Agenda and the Every Child Matters programme by offering out of school provision on school premises
• Schoolfriend etc helps over 90% of eligible parents with children attending Schoolfriend Clubs to successfully claim Working Tax Credits

The competition
The panel of expert judges were:

• Kirsty Anderson, Head of Children’s Books, Heywood Hill Booksellers Ltd
• Jonathan Keates, Head of English, City of London Boys’ School,, author and journalist
• Lady Mitchell, competition sponsor
• Amanda Argent, Chief Executive, Schoolfriend etc

The five winning clubs are:

• Coppermill Primary School, London, Walthamstow
• Grazebrook Primary School, London, Hackney
• Rainham Village Primary & Nursery School, Essex
• Severne Primary School, Birmingham
• Sheep Dip Lane Primary School, Doncaster

The five runner ups are:

• Burbage School, London, Hackney
• Kew Riverside Primary School, Richmond
• Perry Hall Primary School, Wolverhampton
• Scotts Primary School, Essex
• Warren Farm Primary School, Birmingham

Bookwise

• The Bookwise collections are sponsored by the Lowy Mitchell Foundation
• Each collection of children’s books is worth over £1000 and is comprised of over 100 books
• All the books in the collection have been specially chosen by Kirsty Anderson and Lady Mitchell and consist of beautifully illustrated stories, short stories and poetry