Pupil Book Judges

Pupils joined the judging panel of The Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize, helping to select this year’s winning book.

Budding Scientists and avid readers from Years 5, 6 and 7 joined The Royal Society’s collection of judging panels from across the UK, sharing their opinions on six brilliant Science books for children under the age of 14. The shortlisted books were selected by an adult judging panel, including volcano scientist Katharine Cashman FRS and BBC broadcaster Gabby Logan.  Our pupils were amongst 11,500 young judges tasked with reviewing the books and declaring their champion. The pupil judging panels mirrored the adult shortlisting panel, electing their own Chair, holding judging meetings, discussing the merits of each book and submitting their vote and comments.

Over lunch, they met in the Burgess Room in our Oakwood Sixth Form building to watch the online awards ceremony together, taking part in a Science Quiz and cheering for the winner – I Am a Book, I Am a Portal to the Universe – which uncovers awe-inspiring facts about the wonders of the universe. The students also collaborated to create a video summarising their experiences of the past four months as part of the book panel. Their video was awarded third place, with the team winning £100 in book tokens to spend on Science books for our Junior and Senior School libraries.

Director of STEM, Ms Russo, commented: “This was a fantastic collaborative experience for our Junior and Senior School pupils – a great way for the girls to develop their literacy and enthusiasm for Science and to voice their opinions.”