Online book club launched to support trainee teachers

The School of Education held its very first ‘virtual’ book club last week.

The book club was created by the school’s English team as an additional and fun way to develop subject knowledge. The club aims to expand student’s repertoire of contemporary children’s authors but also to offer an environment where open discussion can take place as it would in the classroom.

Students were joined by the English team, the campus library manager and a member of our information services team.

The first book chosen was The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Rauf which is centred around the refugee crisis and won the Waterstone’s children’s book prize in 2019. Lively discussions took place about the story, the characters and the ending – slightly unfortunate for one book club member who hadn’t yet managed to finish it!

Student comments included:

“My daughter read it when she was 8 and she found it very powerful and easy to understand.”

“I enjoyed it and it is a nice story in the current political situation.”

Sinead Kennedy, senior lecturer and chair of the first meeting, said: “We were really pleased with the first meeting and expect membership to expand as students settle in to the new academic year.

“Books plays such an important role in primary schools and we hope that our club will help to ignite a passion for literature in our trainee teachers.”

Find out more about the book club on our website.