Five schools won £1,000/€1,000 to rebuild their libraries this autumn
Find out which lucky schools won our big prize draw!
This summer, we gave you the chance to nominate your school to win £1,000/€1,000 in National Book Tokens. Thousands of parents, carers, teachers and school staff across the UK and Ireland voted. Now it's time to meet the winning schools!
Congratulations to our winners... and thank you to everyone who voted!
We gave schools across the UK and Ireland the chance to win £1,000/€1,000 in National Book Tokens, so they could fill their shelves with new and inspiring books.
Congratulations to our five winners: Coláiste an Chraoibhín Secondary School (Cork), Jackfield Infant School (Stoke on Trent), Richard Rose Morton Academy (Carlisle), Skene Square Primary School (Aberdeen) and White Hall Academy (Clacton-on-Sea). Find out more about the winning schools below!
The winning entrants, whose nominations secured the lucky prizes for their chosen schools, each received a £100/€120 National Book Token to spend in their favourite bookshop.
As our friends at the charity Read for Good® will tell you, it's well established that reading for pleasure leads to significantly better outcomes for children – boosting academic performance, enhancing wellbeing, and fostering vital life skills like empathy.
But reading for pleasure is in decline. In 2025, just 1 in 3 children and young people aged 8 to 18 said they enjoy reading in their free time* – a sharp drop over the past two decades. At the same time, the work Read for Good® do in schools shows that many school libraries are underfunded, outdated, and filled with books that fail to engage today's readers. Children who rely most on school libraries are often those most likely to be missing out.
We were proud to bring this prize draw to you for the fifth year in association with Read for Good, offering schools across the UK and Ireland the chance to rebuild their libraries.
And, to celebrate the UK's National Year of Reading, we gave away even more prizes this year so that more schools – and more children – had a chance to enhance their libraries and Go All In on reading.
Congratulations to our seven flash prize draw winners, who were selected weekly over the summer to receive a £100/€100 National Book Token for their school:
- Appleton Thorn Primary School in Warrington
- Ballyvary Central National School in Castlebar
- Mill Ford School in Plymouth
- King Edward VI College in Nuneaton
- Balwearie High School in Kirkcaldy
- Ysgol Dewi Sant in Rhyl
- The South Wolds Academy and Sixth Form in Nottingham
"School budgets are increasingly tight and to complete the refresh we need to, we just don't have the funds. To have the greatest impact our book stocks need a complete overhaul and to do this we need financial support."
Teacher
Meet this year's winning schools
Coláiste an Chraoibhín Secondary School, Cork
Coláiste an Chraoibhín is a vibrant and progressive co-educational secondary school in Fermoy, Co. Cork. The school provides a supportive environment where students are encouraged to reach their full potential. Through its active partnership with the local library network and a strong commitment to literacy, Coláiste an Chraoibhín inspires a lifelong love of reading and learning – something their €1,000 National Book Tokens prize will help to support this autumn and beyond.
Jackfield Infant School, Stoke on Trent
"We were overjoyed to find out that our school had been selected to receive one of the £1,000 book token prizes! At Jackfield Infant School, we understand the importance of reading and how essential it is to develop a love of reading from the very start. We want to foster a lifelong love of books in our children, so we will use the money to purchase new books for our school library and classrooms that will spark their interests and inspire their imaginations. We want all our children to have the opportunity to enjoy high-quality texts at home as well as at school."
Wendy Cooper, English Lead
Richard Rose Morton Academy, Carlisle
"We're absolutely delighted to have won £1,000 worth of book tokens for our school. We've been working really hard to ensure that reading is at the heart of everything that we do. It's especially exciting to receive this award during the National Year of Reading, as it gives us even more opportunities to inspire our students through books and stories. We can't wait to add some fantastic new titles to our library for everyone to enjoy."
Carrie Mulholland, Librarian
Skene Square Primary School, Aberdeen
"We are delighted to be one of five national winners of this competition. We all love our library and work hard to ensure it remains up to date, diverse and inclusive, with a wide range of authors and titles. Our Reading Leaders will now work with the owner of our local bookshop to select new books on behalf of all learners. Thank you again for this fantastic prize, it will make a real difference and further support our love of reading and the promotion of literacy across our school."
Vivienne Innes, Head Teacher
White Hall Academy, Clacton-on-Sea
"We are delighted that White Hall Academy has won the National Book Tokens #rebuildthelibrary competition. This wonderful prize will help us fill our library with books that reflect our children's interests and spark their imaginations. Over the last few years, we have invested in improving our library and ensure all the books are up to date and engaging. Thank you to National Book Tokens for supporting us in continuing this work!"
Karis Baxter, English Lead
Read for Good® and National Book Tokens have worked in partnership for many years, bringing the joy of being able to choose and keep a book to thousands of children.
- Thousands of schools run Readathon® because it's a proven, fun way to get pupils reading for pleasure. Money raised through Readathon supports Read for Good to bring the magic of books and stories to children in hospitals and schools across the UK.
- Get reading inspiration from their Books we love page – ideal if you're buying new books for your school – and sign up to Read for Good's updates and 'Books we love' newsletter for book giveaways, reading inspiration, author events and more!
- Explore the wonderful world of books through their Reading Journey posters – created to appeal to pupils who are not sure what they'd like to read.
- Apply for one of Read for Good's Brilliant Box of Books, helping schools and community settings in need get a boost of books!
- For all this and more reading resources, perfect for the National Year of Reading, go to readforgood.org.
National Book Tokens have inspired booklovers for more than 90 years, empowering readers to choose just the right books for them. National Book Tokens gift cards are accepted in hundreds of bookshops across the UK and Ireland, and online.
Available to purchase in bookshops, supermarkets, or online – including personalised and e-gift cards, and Bookily – there are designs for booklovers of all ages and for all occasions. National Book Tokens gift cards are produced on FSC-certified card, have an expiry of 8 years from last use, and expired cards can be replaced.
Find out how National Book Tokens can be used by schools, colleges and universities to reward, inspire and incentivise children and students.
2025
- Dundonald Primary School, Belfast
- Meols Cop High School, Merseyside
- St Luke's School, Hertfordshire
- St Mary's C of E Primary School, Cornwall
- Ysgol Llywelyn, Denbighshire
2024
- Baldragon Academy, Dundee
- Astrea Academy, Doncaster
- Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna, Dublin
- Kingsbury Green Academy, Wiltshire
- Malmesbury Primary School, Tower Hamlets
2023
- St John's and St Peter's Academy, Birmingham
- North Huddersfield Trust School, Huddersfield
- Scoil Bhríde Lann Léire, Co. Louth
- Sporle C of E Primary Academy, Norfolk
- Ysgol Ffordd Dyffryn, Llandudno
2022
- Archbishop Temple Church of England High School, Lancashire
- Batley Girls' High School, West Yorkshire
- Finn Valley College, Donegal
- Hanslope Primary School, Milton Keynes
- Star of the Sea RC Primary School, Tyne and Wear
We're proud to support the National Year of Reading
If you're into it... read into it! In 2026, every adult, young person and child are invited to Go All In – to discover how reading can make the things you already love even richer.
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