Luton primary school wins national 'learning in lockdown' award

Pirton Hill Primary School has won the 'Save the Minibeast Award' at the Lockdown Learning Awards, for their creative and engaging school reading initiative.

The awards were established by firm Renaissance and recognise the creativity and resilience of individual teachers and schools over the last year, particularly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lockdown presented unique challenges for teachers, with wide ranging pressures from delivering for key workers’ children to meeting demands from home schooling.

Schools adapted quickly to overcome the barriers lockdown placed to ensure children’s learning was not halted, and the whole event was designed to recognise these heroic efforts.

The school uses Renaissance’s accelerated reader to assess their pupils reading skills and to set each child a personalised target based on their reading level.

Glenn Booth, headteacher at Pirton Hill Primary, said: “We were all delighted to receive the Save the Minibeast Award. We wanted to do something to engage the children with reading and to motivate them to reach their targets - the initiative has become a massive part of our reading culture at the school.

"I’m so proud of all of the staff for their perseverance and commitment during a challenging year.

"Reading is now a top priority for all of our pupils and this is clear from the outstanding progress we are seeing across the school.”

For the last four years the Renaissance Awards have celebrated best practice and outstanding achievements from customers and individuals across the country. Each year the awards have grown in terms of the number of entrants, awards and – of course – winners!

However, given the unprecedented events of 2020, the renamed ‘Lockdown Learning Awards’ were open for entries from all schools across the nation.

Sarah Haythornthwaite, marketing director at Renaissance, added: “We’re thrilled to be able to honour the brilliant work of Pirton Hill Primary School with the Lockdown Learning Awards.

"It has been a beyond challenging year for the education sector as a whole but we continue to be amazed by the creativity, innovation and excellence we see from schools across the country – often in the most difficult circumstances.

"It has never been more important than now to recognise and reward the fantastic work being done by teachers everywhere to help accelerate learning for all.”