You read it here first - South Devon College wins prestigious award

The library team at South Devon College have been recognised with a top national award.

They have been honoured with the Council for Learning Resources in Colleges Innovative Practice Award in recognition of literacy engagement.

The College’s original South West Reading Challenge was seen as a very worthy recipient of the annual award, which acknowledges creativity, quality and the organisational impact of service provision on teaching, learning and the student experience. 

As one of the judges acknowledged: “An excellent nomination. The cross-sector partnership work is particularly interesting for the rest of the FE Library community.” 

Alex Barton, Library Services Deputy Head, said: "My team and I are so proud that our reading initiative has been awarded the 2025 CoLRiC Innovative Practice Award.

"To receive national recognition feels truly wonderful, and it reinforces our belief in the value and impact of this project. At its heart, it’s about sharing the love of reading — something that we know has the power to transform lives.” 

Created to inspire reading in all students, the annual South West Reading Challenge is designed to be inclusive of all reading abilities – participants are tasked to either read two items (bronze), four items (silver) or six items (gold), and write a review of each.  

Learners can choose their own categories to read from, be that fiction, a recipe, poem, article or factual piece, and all curriculum areas take part, not just those studying English. 

Each completer is awarded a certificate and digital badge for their profile on their Virtual Learning Environment and entered into a draw to win prizes, which could include laptops, shopping vouchers, headphones and tablets. 

As one South Devon College Learning Opportunities student said: “Doing the reading challenge has opened up the door to loads of different genres I didn’t even know about. It has also improved my confidence when it comes to having discussions about a particular topic with other people.” 

What is even more impressive about the South West Reading Challenge is that it sees all institutions, from FE colleges and schools to public libraries, taking part. 

Institutions pay a small fee to join the scheme, of which 100 per cent gets fed back into the prize fund. South Devon College creates a personalised digital pack for each organisation taking part, including posters, flyers, certificates and bookmarks, to help promote the scheme to their interested readers.