Batting for Literacy Success – Report

2000 saw International Cricket and the England team visit Durham's Riverside ground for the first time. Their visit was a tremendous achievement for the country's newest first class county. To involve local primary school children in the occasion and to help raise the profile of cricket across Durham, the Durham Cricket Board in association with Durham County Cricket Club organised and ran a Literacy competition.

Cricket and sport in general is having to compete for classroom time in Primary Schools with many other subjects. The modern trend towards Literacy and Numeracy increases the pressure on sport and in particular summer sports like cricket. With this problem in mind a novel approach to introducing cricket to Primary School children was adopted. Literacy is compulsory in the timetable, therefore a literacy competition was designed so that children would receive a positive learning experience and the teachers literacy teaching goals were achieved by completing the project. Children were asked to produce and alternative International Match Day Programme detailing; their local area, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean as holiday destinations and their experiences of cricket, to the crowd on the match days.

The competition was designed with help from local literacy advisors and consultants. A huge thank you must go to these advisors for their help and guidance.

Batting for Literacy Success received very generous sponsorship from HJ Banks Co Ltd. This sponsorship was then Sportsmatched. Without the support of this sponsorship and sportsmatch it would not have been possible to run the competition. A huge thank you to the sponsor for their generosity. Thanks must also go to NatWest and ECB for the assistance and support.

In total 80 Schools entered the competition and 20 schools submitted programmes for judging. The winning 8 schools won tickets to watch one of the international matches at Riverside and had the opportunity to play Kwik Cricket on the outfield during the lunch break. The winning schools were: St Patrick's Dipton, St Begas Hartlepool, Bullion Lane Chester-le-Street, St John Baptist Stockton, East Boldon Junior, St Chads Bishop Auckland, Sunderland High School and Esh C of E Primary Durham. The winner was the entry from St Patrick's Dipton. The winning entry was printed professionally and distributed by the children to the crowd on the Match days.

A huge amount of time and effort went into producing the programmes. The judging was conducted by Local Education Authority, Literacy Advisors and cricket writers from the local press. The feedback was that the work was of a particularly high standard and the competition met a number of teaching goals. "It was a pleasure to be associated with a competition where such a high quality of work was produced" Marion Bridgewood - Literacy Advisor.

All the entries were displayed to the crowd on both match days in the NatWest village and a good deal of interest was shown in them. The competition was covered by Sky during the lunch interval of the game and a large amount of positive publicity was received.

Thanks again to HJ Banks Co Ltd and Sportsmatch for the support of this initiative and cricket development in general. Thanks also to the advisors who designed the competition, the teachers for getting so involved and delivering the lessons and the children for producing such excellent work.

© Durham CCC