A school is full of millionaires, word millionaires that is. The Helena Romanes School, in Parsonage Downs, Great Dunmow, encourages students to read through the Accelerated Reader (AR) scheme.

The scheme is a way of schools encouraging children to read, enabling progress to be monitored with quizzes being set at the end of each book.

By the end of term in July, 24 students became word millionaires by reading more than a million words.

Throughout the year, the word millionaires collected golden tickets to enter an end of year draw to win two family tickets to Namco Funscape Bowling Centre, in Freeport, Braintree. The winners were Amy Austin, in year 7, and William Smith, year 8.

Annette Turner, learning zone manager, said: “We strive to develop a lifelong love of reading while motivating students of all ages to read more suitable, challenging books.

“The Accelerated Reader scheme helps students to select books which are difficult enough to be challenging, but not too difficult to cause frustration.”