The last time I devoted an entry to the NSW Premier's Challenge (PRC) was in 2018. I did make references to the PRC in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, I had mentioned that there were no spine labels to identify PRC Books while commenting on Genre Labels on the spines of books and in 2024, I mentioned PRC medals being presented to students as part of the school's annual presentation day at the Sydney Opera House.
Firstly, I can mention that last year I finished labelling the spines with books featured in the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge in 2025. I had done this largely unassisted, carefully going through our fiction collection, item by item. We had countless books that were meant to be listed as PRC books, but because they had a different ISBN number from the one officially listed on SCIS, I had to manually add them in OLIVER.
This also meant that I could update the PRC lists and also created a general list to consolidate the reading lists for secondary schools into one list. In effect, I doubled the number of available items with a PRC listing. I estimate around 1000 books in the fiction collection at my school are in the PRC.
I designed my own label using Microsoft Word and an RAECO template and applied it as a standard label to all PRC books, since the Year 5-6 reading list can also be accessed by secondary school students. Any PRC Books that were not Year 5-6, Years 7-9 and Year 9+ were not stickered.
Feel free to email me at fabian.amuso@det.nsw.edu.au if you would like a copy to use when labelling PRC items in your collections.
For our PRC display, just having the label on it has saved time setting it up.
In 2024, I also began presenting Gold and Platinum awards at our school assemblies each year. I enjoy the opportunity to recognise the students who commit themselves over a sustained period of time. It is an advocacy tool in itself, encouraging students to challenge themselves to set reading goals and realise that reading for pleasure can be rewarding. You can be rewarded for reading regularly. For some students, it may be the only time they are recognised at a whole-school level for their efforts in anything.
Let's see what 2026 brings. I know one student who has not participated for a few years wants to give it a go this year, and I feel encouraged when a student seeks assistance with filling out their reading records, even at this early stage.
What I am also encouraged to is how its easier to participate than ever e.g. books read aloud by teachers in high school count towards the total of 20 books read, whereas it was previously for primary school participants only, an additional month added for students to participate and complete the challenge but also only needing to read just 10 books from the official list (down from 15).
