Literacy Week

This week we celebrate Literacy Week at Mount Alvernia College.  Like Book Week celebrated in many primary schools, Literacy Week invites students into the world of literature through displays, events, and promotions.  Additionally, Literacy Week draws attention to the privilege of education and the ability to read and write.  We highlight the opportunities available to those who are literate, and raise awareness about the issues of illiteracy still facing many nationally and internationally.  In particular, we raise money and awareness toward improving Indigenous literacy in Australia.  Alarmingly, research also suggests that the incidence of aliteracy has risen among young Australians since 2010.  Aliteracy is where young people have learned independent reading skills, but they choose not to read (Merga, 2019, p.23).  Literacy Week celebrations are one of the ways we aim to instill a foundation and love of reading in the Mount Alvernia College students.

This year, the iCentre is decked out in a Peter Pan theme.  We have some amazing displays, including the Lost Boy’s hideout, Pan and the Darling children flying out of Wendy’s bedroom window across the London night sky, a giant map of Neverland, and Tiger Lily’s Indian Camp.  We have hosted a Literacy Week party for staff and students, a full-day creative writing workshop for students in Years 8 and 9, and will hold a pizza party for the winners of the Principal’s Reading Challenge.

The Principal’s Reading Challenge is an inter-house competition.  The idea is to have books and reading happening throughout the college, and beyond the library and the English classroom.  This is the first year of the Challenge and we have been delighted with the enthusiasm for this initiative across the college.  The winning Home Room is treated with a pizza party on Friday of Literacy Week at the conclusion of the Challenge.  Our inaugural winner of the Principal’s Reading Challenge is Ms Porchak’s Home Room - Perugia 1 - who read a combined total of 253.4 hours in the five weeks of the Challenge.

Helen Stower

Program Leader, iCentre