ANNUAL REPORT

Entering its eighteenth year in 2021, the Premier’s Reading Challenge (the Challenge) is a literacy engagement program that challenges South Australian students from reception to year 12, across all 3 education sectors, to read 12 books by early September each year.  Many schools incorporate the Challenge into their whole-of-school approach to literacy.

A different certificate or medal is awarded to students in progressive order, based on the number of years the Challenge has been completed. Students are able to gain 14 awards, 1 award for each year of schooling.

The program was initiated in South Australia in 2004 to encourage students to read more books for enjoyment and to improve literacy levels. Some other states and territories in Australia also conduct a premier’s or chief minister’s reading challenge or similar program, with these outcomes in mind.

In 2021, as COVID-19 restrictions continued from the previous year, remote learning continued as a feature of school life for many students. In the first year of COVID, there was an increase in PRC participation. However in 2021, the PRC experienced its first significant drop in participants, with 3,819 fewer students completing the Challenge. This was likely the impact of COVID on schools and their ability to coordinate and promote the PRC in trying times.

The budget allocation for conducting the program in 2021 was $311,000. With completion by 129,752 students, this equates to approximately $2.40 per student.

A total of 129,752 students from all 3 education sectors completed the Challenge in 2021. This reflected a decrease of 3,819 completions on 2020. There has been a steady increase in the number of participants completing the PRC since its inception in 2004, but the advent of COVID appears to have blunted growth.

In 2021, 129,752 students completed the Challenge, from 96% of all schools in South Australia. Students were comprised of (see Figure 1a):

• 85,567 from government schools (DECD)
• 21,657 from Catholic schools (CESA)
• 22,528 students from independent schools and home-educated or individual students (AISSA).

The Challenge was originally intended to encourage reception to year 9 students to read more books for enjoyment and to improve literacy levels, but as more students reaching the senior years wished to continue with the Challenge, it was extended to include their participation.

In 2021, 1,147 students in years 10, 11 and 12 (2%[i] of senior secondary students) chose to continue completing the Challenge, which is a similar number to the previous year (1,193). Secondary school students continue to be selective in participating in the Challenge (see Figure 2).

[i] Full-time equivalent students from ABS report 4221.0 Schools, Australia, 2021. Total Senior secondary students for 2021 were 58,897.

The Challenge has an emphasis on encouraging all schools and students to participate and reflects government priorities to improve the educational outcomes for Aboriginal learners as well as specifically contributing to the Aboriginal Education Strategy 2019-2029.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 4221.0 Schools, Australia, 2021 report indicates that there were 14,196 Aboriginal students in South Australia in 2021. A total of 5,009 Aboriginal students completed the Challenge (35.3%). This was a 0.5% increase from 2020 (see Figure 3).

Ernabella and Indulkana and Pipalyatjara Anangu Schools and Koonibba Aboriginal School were acknowledged among the 55 outstanding schools recognised by the Premier’s Congratulatory pack for attaining a high percentage of students who completed the Challenge.

In 2021, 218 home-educated or individually enrolled students completed the Challenge (see Figure 4).

Of the 129,752 students who completed the Challenge in 2021, 50% were female and 50% were male. In recent years there has been little difference between completion rates for boys and girls (see Figure 5).

NAPLAN results have consistently shown that government school students completing the Challenge showed better rates of reading growth or improvement than government school students who did not complete the Challenge.

For successive tests, students completing the Challenge had a larger percentage in the ‘high growth’ category and lower percentages in the ‘low growth’ category across all year levels. This improvement trend has continued consistently since 2009. The growth distributions for all year levels are represented in Figure 7.

While the Challenge is just one of many literacy activities that may be contributing to these results, the data clearly supports the theory that consistent reading is an effective way for students to improve their reading skills.

In government schools, Aboriginal students who completed the Challenge also attained higher reading scores for NAPLAN in 2021 than Aboriginal students who did not complete the Challenge (see Figure 8a).

While the pattern is consistent between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students, the gap between the groups is significant (see Figure 8b).

One of the strengths of the Challenge in promoting reading for enjoyment is the Ambassador program. There are 22 individual ambassadors and 6 ambassador teams who volunteer their time to promote the Challenge. They all play a key role in motivating students to read and improve their literacy levels.

The individual ambassadors made 17 specific Challenge visits to schools to promote the Challenge amidst COVID-19 restrictions.

The Minister for Education, the Hon John Gardner MP, also made many school visits during 2021. He regularly highlighted schools’ achievements in the Challenge and encouraged schools to continue their involvement.

The ambassador teams volunteer their time as joint ambassadors for the Premier’s Reading and be active challenges. They usually promote the message of ‘reading and being active’ during school visits and clinics.

For more information about the ambassadors and ambassador teams, visit www.prc.sa.edu.au.

Two posters for primary schools and two for secondary schools were designed by South Australian artists and posted on the website for students to vote for their preference during 2021. This was to enable students to have a voice in the promotion of the program, to influence the face of the Challenge for 2022 and to increase the engagement of secondary students.

The winning primary poster was by Gabriel Cunnett and the secondary poster was by Claire Wee (see below). These will be printed and distributed as the posters for the 2022 Challenge campaign.

In 2021, there were 132,205 visitors to the Premier’s Reading Challenge website, with  a total of 373,721 page views. Almost 95% of visitors were from Australia, followed by the United States with over 1% and then a mix of countries such as China, India and Singapore making up the remaining visitors. This indicates an interest from those overseas in the SA Premier’s Reading Challenge.

The website was most often accessed by desktop computer (58.9%) followed by mobile device (36.6%) and then by tablet (4.5%).

In 2021, the school contact staff who organised and supported the Challenge were critical to its success. Their efforts in encouraging teachers and students to read, maintaining book collections, requesting ambassador visits, entering data of students completing the Challenge and managing the celebration presentations were pivotal to the success of the Challenge.

School contact staff received monthly information about the Challenge via email. Regular communication was maintained and these updates continued to be a vital support in ensuring the success of the program.

The booklists were maintained and updated by a panel of 3 teacher-librarians, a public librarian and the Challenge administration team who met regularly. The knowledge of this group is critical in ensuring the quality of the booklists for the Challenge. The panel consists of Fran Knight, Jane Toop, Jane Bassham, Nicole Dent, Mark Williams and Kaleen Raethel.

The booklists continue to be a very important part of the program, as evidenced by the website usage. The most accessed/popular pages are the home page and the booklist pages.

 In 2021 there were 7,817 books on the booklists, including 360 new books. Books from series already included in the Challenge booklists were also added, but not individually listed as all books in a listed series are automatically included in the Challenge booklists.

The STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) booklist category was used as the basis of a successful sub challenge of the Challenge (see Additional opportunities for students).