THE director of the St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature, Simon Pollard, has won a national award just days before the festival runs for a second time.

Simon, who is the head teacher at Carclaze Primary School, has been declared the joint winner of the Community Reading Champion category in the Harper Collins Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards 2024.

Simon said: “I am so proud to have won this community award on behalf of the St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature.”

The second festival is running in the town from Friday, June 28, to Sunday, June 30, following on from the successful first festival last year.

The awards, in association with the Open University and the UK Literacy Association, celebrate how teachers have found innovative ways to inspire reading for pleasure.

Each year since their launch in 2017, the awards have revealed the determination and passion of teachers across the country to get children – and their parents - reading. The organisers said the teachers who entered the 2024 awards were just as passionate and continued to display inventiveness in original and surprising ways.

Simon was chosen as the joint winner in the Community Reading Champion category with Cathy Cook, of the Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Virtual Book Club for Cancer Patients at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.

The judges told Simon: “We are very impressed with your entry. You had clear aims to build a reading community, engage families and improve children’s lives through reading for pleasure.

“There has been an enormous amount of work involved to make the St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature happen, from practicalities and publicity to the sheer drive to keep going and bring people with you.

“The festival is a wonderful example of how to ignite change. We are so impressed with its impact on the community. The outcome has been amazing and your plans to grow and build on it are exciting and inspiring. You really have made a difference and are a well deserving winner.”