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At Rugby High, we love books! There’s no two ways about it. We love to see our students reading and we encourage and celebrate this activity in all sorts of different ways.
 Reading recommendations and reading lists. As well as having a number of lists of recommendations for students at all key stages that we update regularly, we also encourage students to recommend books to each other and to us. Please visit the School Library pages to read lists of recommendations available. In addition, some forms keep their own files of recommended books - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, biographies - and students are encouraged to fill in recommendation proformas which are then displayed and stored in the Library. Every week, a book is recommended as “Book of the Week”, in the Library, around the school and in the school newsletter. Each week, a different year group is asked to make this recommendation.
We believe that students appreciate the writer’s craft much more strongly if they write creatively themselves on a regular basis. We encourage students to enter the Rupert Brooke creative writing competition, organised by Rugby School, and Rugby High’s own Jessie Wright Memorial Poetry Competition. Jessie Wright was a former RHS student who loved and excelled at poetry recitation. Her family asked the English department to set up a recitation award in her memory. Pupils in years 7 and 8 enter this competition and older students enter the writing competition. The recitations voted most effective and powerful by the pupils and the poetry judges as most well-crafted and evocative by the English staff are showcased in the delightful annual Jessie Wright Memorial Poetry evening which takes place in late January or early February each year.
Making reading fun and setting reading challenges. Again the Library pages will give you lots more information about this. Every year, we promote reading during our Spring term reading month. Students in years 7 to 9 are encouraged to take part in a sponsored read with a different charity beneficiary each year. The students have given thousands of pounds to local charities such as the Warwickshire Air Ambulance and international charities such as Water Aid and Book Aid. In addition, pupils in years 7 and 8 taking part in the RiBiT and BARC awards, aiming for bronze, silver and gold certificates. These awards are conducted over a month long period and the pupils are given the opportunity to read widely - fiction, non-fiction and poetry - to write reviews, make presentations about books they have read and to respond to their reading creatively. The whole book month culminates in Book Week in which a range of reading-related activities take place. Each year, the week has a thematic link with another school department and competitions, quizzes and curricular and extra-curricular activities link to this. The final day of the week is the annual Book Character Fancy Dress day when staff and students from all year groups make the school a riot of colour and activity with a range of amazing books and reading related costumes.
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