A SCHOOL and top football club are working together to en-courage 'father figures' to set aside time every day to read with their sons.
As part of its drive for improvement, Holy Cross Boys' PS in north Belfast has devised a new reading initiative involving pupils and their dads, uncles, grandfathers and other male role models.
This 10-4-LAD - 10 minutes for lad and dad - scheme encourages father figures to put 10 minutes aside each day to spend reading with their boys.
Research has shown that spending this short amount of time reading each day can make a significant difference to a child's educational prospects.
As part of the initiative, the school is offering a teacher-led reading workshop which will focus on educating fathers about how to get the best out of a book when reading with a child.
More than 40 fathers and grandfathers have signed up to attend the session next week, while an additional workshop is planned for Solitude, the home of the Irish League Champions Cliftonville FC.
At last night's League Cup quarter final fixture between Cliftonville and Portadown at Solitude, the school distributed leaflets promoting the initiative and inviting fans to attend the special reading workshop.
Numerous Cliftonville players have been photographed reading with their own boys to promote the scheme.
The leaflet urges dads to: "Put 10 minutes aside each day to kick start your lad's reading and help him to tackle his reading goals."
The school makes some suggestions for materials that male role models might find helpful when reading with children. These include school novels, newspapers library books, sports programmes and even recipes, road signs and instruction manuals.
Holy Cross Boys' vice-principal Chris Donnelly said the school sought the partnership with Cliftonville FC because so many pupils and their fathers attend matches regularly.
"We have developed a strong affinity with the club in recent years, with past pupil and Cliftonville FC forward, Joe Gormley, visiting the school to present replica shirts and footballs on a number of occasions. Conor Devlin and Liam Boyce have also visited the school to speak of their careers in the past year to a packed assembly hall of excited pupils," Mr Donnelly said.
"In many ways, attendance at a football game represents one of the most cherished shared father son experiences, and we thought it would be nice to try and highlight how such occasions can be utilised effectively to trigger interest in a shared reading experience for father and son - for example, spending five minutes at half time reading through the match programme with a child passes on a love for reading but also extends awareness of a unique writing genre and of vocabulary terms."
* ROLE MODELS: Clockwise from top left, Cliftonville goalkeeper Conor Devlin shows his support for Holy Cross Boys' 10-4-LAD reading scheme; Joe Gormley with P6 pupil Christopher Cunningham Mooney; team captain Geordie McMullan reading with his two children; and Ronan Scannell with his son