About The Program

Choirmaster Gareth Malone teaches in a primary school in Essex for one term. It is a school like many across Britain, with a significant gap between girls’ and boys’ achievement in literacy. Last week we saw Gareth and the boys tree-climbing and sharpening their speaking skills with a debate. This time Gareth faces a new mission: to get the boys reading.

Head Chris Thurgood has set Gareth a tough target of improving the boys’ reading age and she is unconvinced that his methods are working. When Gareth discovers that one boy has never even set foot in a bookshop, and another spends seven hours a day playing computer games, the magnitude of his task becomes clear. So he decides to stage a reading competition to run alongside the World Cup, and even gets the dads in to help get their boys reading with the lure of a camp-out in the school woodland.

Will Gareth’s efforts be enough to convince the boys to put down their games consoles and pick up a book, and to show the head teacher that there is method to his madness?

ABC1 9:30pm Tuesday, January 17th 2012
ABC1 9:25pm Tuesday, January 24th 2012
ABC1 9:55pm Tuesday, January 31st 2012
ABC1 9:30pm Tuesday, February 7th 2012

Or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI9d9jW1ouc  

Source: Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/abc1/201201/programs/ZX5984A002D2012-01-24T212618.htm)