THE spring term kicked off with visits from the St Albans Observer for two local schools which are taking part in the hugely successful Reading Passport newspaper scheme.

Maple JMI School in Hall Place Gardens, St Albans, was joining the scheme with the Observer for the first time, but Wood End JMI School in Harpenden signed up two classes with nearly 70 children after thoroughly enjoying the project a year ago.

Last term nearly 400 children from eight schools across the district took part in the scheme when newspapers were on the national curriculum course.The scheme aims to help children improve literacy and numeracy skills while completing fun assignments based on their local newspaper.

Children also learn more about their community through their local newspaper and are encouraged to read newspapers.

Each child is given a Reading Passport with 15 different assignments. This term's includes finding articles of special interest from sport to science, identifying different people in the news, preparing a millennium time capsule, headline writing, creating an advertisement, and finding people who have "broken the rules of society".

Children from both schools will be visiting the Review and Observer newsroom and advertising department during the project and writing their own articles for our education page.

"Last year's project was excellent," said teacher Maureen Webster at Wood End. "We were able to create our own news sheet which we sold in the school to raise money for charity."

At Maple JMI, teacher Gill Clilverd says they are looking forward to linking Reading Passport to their St Albans project this term using the Observer for local information.

Features editor Susan Nowak visited both schools to talk about newspapers and to stamp the children's passports.