Administering the PRC
Staff and teachers across South Australia do a wonderful job of promoting reading and the Premier’s Reading Challenge – thank you for your dedication, care and creativity!
Most of the information you require about the Challenge is contained in the Guidelines and across the site (e.g. Booklists).
A brief outline of the role of the PRC Coordinator can be found here.
Following are issues that arise regularly from schools…
Keeping Student Reading Records – File Management Recommendations
Once data for the Challenge has been submitted and medals and certificates have been distributed, our system’s database acts as the official and verifiable record of participation.
Management and retention of student records after each Challenge year is the responsibility of individual schools.
We recommend that schools retain student records for a minimum of 12 months following the conclusion of each Challenge year.
Any retention beyond this period is at the discretion of the school.
SA Public Libraries
Public libraries across South Australia strongly support the Premier’s Reading Challenge. They play an integral part in the program by providing books for students to borrow.
Many of the books in the booklists can be downloaded for free or borrowed in hardcopy format through the statewide OneCard library catalogue. Your OneCard allows you to borrow and return Premier’s Reading Challenge books to any of the public libraries across South Australia.
→ Join online at libraries.sa.gov.au/join
→ Search the library catalogue for PRC titles at libraries.sa.gov.au
→ Access the digital services, including PRC ebooks and audiobooks at libraries.sa.gov.au/digital
→ Read parent and family information about the PRC at libraries.sa.gov.au/prcparents
→ Read teacher information about the PRC at libraries.sa.gov.au/prc
→ Contact your library or council for any further information at libraries.sa.gov.au/locate
Students’ Interstate Participation Acknowledgement
If you have students who have moved to your school from interstate and have completed the Premier’s Reading Challenge in their old school prior to moving to SA, we are more than happy to update our records to include their previous participation.
Please note that we cannot give students retrospective awards but will award them in the current year according to the number of years completed both interstate and in SA.
As we do not have access to the interstate records, we require the following steps to be undertaken:
- Students requiring acknowledgement of interstate participation show their school’s PRC coordinator the certificates they received interstate.
- PRC coordinator then contacts the PRC office via email (prc@sa.gov.au ) and provides the following information:
- Student’s name
- Current year level
- EDID number (this is the long number on EMS with a letter on the end.) – Government schools only
- Date of birth
- Which years the student completed the Challenge interstate
3. PRC staff will then add the student to your school for the previous years, and the student will receive the next award according to how many years they have completed the Challenge overall.
Students who are relocating to another school (local or interstate)
Please ensure that their PRC record goes with each student to their new school, and that the student and their parents are clear on what level the student is ‘up to’.
Award Level Enquiries – students new to your school
To find out what award level a new student at your school is reading for this year, please email prc@sa.gov.au with the following information for each student so we can ensure we get the correct student’s details:
- Full name (including any previous names, alternative names, nicknames)
- Gender (current and previous, if changed)
- Date of birth
- Previous school
- (For Government sites only) EMS ID (long number with a letter on the end, from EMS) – please note that this is not the student ID.
Then we can look up the students required and let you know where they are up to in the Challenge and ensure their records will match up when you enter your data this year.
Booklists
There are around 9,000 books on the PRC booklist. Not all books remain in publication, but they remain on the list because these books can be found on library shelves around the State. Some students may choose to read and add out of publication books to their reading record.
Twice a year, a new PRC list of contemporary books is made available to schools and libraries to consider adding to their shelves. These lists are circulated by email to coordinators.
