How to get involved

Important Dates

  • Registration open: from 18th February 2008
  • Shortlist Announcement: 24th April 2008
  • Deadline for entering the Gaelic creative writing competition: 3rd October 2008
  • Deadline for entering the review competition: 24th October 2008
  • Deadline for submitting your votes: 7th November 2008
  • Notification of review winners: 10th November 2008
  • Awards Ceremony: 18th November 2008

 

Summary for individual children and young people taking part

To take part as an individual, go to register and fill in 'individual' in the field asking you for the organisation name. Under 'job title' insert 'Young Judge' and your age.

 

Summary for reading group organisers

Here is a brief overview of how the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books work. For full details, please follow the link at the bottom of the page to download our full guidelines, and an explanation of how taking part relates to A Curriculum for Excellence. 

The young judges can participate in the awards in one or both of two ways:

  • Reading the shortlist books in their age category and voting for the one they would like to win
  • Reading the books in a paired reading scheme whereby older children read the shortlisted books in one age-group category to younger children - also suitable for reluctant readers and children with additional support needs. Click here for more details.
  • Reviewing one of the books they have read and entering the review competition. Winning reviewers in each category will receive a £25 book token for themselves and a visit for their school from one of the winning writers
  • Entering our Gaelic creative writing competition, the winner of which will receive an author visit to their school and book tokens for themselves. Click here for more details.

 

Step 1: Planning

Decide which age group category(ies) you are going to get your group to judge.
• Early Years 0-7 years
• Younger Readers 8-11 years
• Older Readers 12-16 years
• The Gaelic Creative Writing Competition - click here for more information about this. 

 

Step 2: Register

Register online here 

 

Step 3: Discussion

Decide how you will work with your group. Think about whether:
• To run/start a reading group, work with a whole class or individual pupils
• To read to the pupils, record extracts or get them to read themselves
• To have discussion sessions and if so how often and what to talk about. You can find topics for discussion in the reading pack.

 

Step 4: Review (optional)

Encourage young judges to send a review of the book they have read. All reviews are posted on Scottish Book Trust website and enter the review competition.

 

Step 5: Voting

• You can run the voting in any way you please, as long as in the end you count one vote per young judge. You can use individual ballot paper for each judge (see in your reading group pack)
• Please check the total number of votes adds up to the number of children who have been involved in judging the awards in your organisation.
• Collate the votes from your group on the Group Organiser’s Form (see in your reading group pack) and return it by post or email by the deadline.

 

Step 6: Sending your vote

All voting this year will be done on our website. Please watch out for further information about this.

 

More information 

Go back to Royal Mail Awards home page