Merchiston Receives Gold in Reading Schools Programme

Published by Merchiston Castle School on Thursday 6th of February 2025

The Reading Schools programme, developed by Scottish Book Trust, is an accreditation programme for schools that are committed to building a reading culture for their learners and communities, where every pupil is encouraged to feed their imagination through books.

The programme is open to all schools in Scotland, and there are currently 1173 schools taking part over three levels of accreditation – Core, Silver and Gold.

We are delighted to announce that Merchiston has become the first independent school in Edinburgh to achieve the Gold award. This is an incredible achievement and we welcomed our Library Prefects (who form our Reading Leadership team) on stage at last week's Whole School Assembly to present them with the official plaque, which marks this momentous occasion. 

Reading for pleasure is central to supporting wellbeing, improving attainment across the curriculum, and boosting critical thinking, creativity, empathy and resilience. At Merchiston we have built on our strong foundations as a reading community and developed this by sharing our passion for books and reading across year groups, the staff body and with outside parties to establish ourselves as an official gold standard Reading School. The Reading Leadership team, made up of boys from the Middle and Senior years, have been instrumental in their ideas and initiatives to enhance reading for pleasure as an inviting and rewarding activity. In leading inspiring assemblies, hosting reading-based campaigns, organising large scale author events and more, constructive reading behaviours have been role modelled, books and authors celebrated and a significant uptake in reading observed.

Obtaining the Gold award is especially significant following recent reports that reading for pleasure is in decline amongst young people - the commitment and enthusiasm for reading exemplified at Merchiston seem to contradict this and the Library remains a popular spot for reading, research and activities, sitting right at the heart of the school.

A huge thank you to Ms Gibb, our Librarian who looks after the boys in the library and creates an incredible environment which fosters this love of reading. This award would not have been attainable without her constant support.