Students at Purvis Primary School have spent more than half a million minutes reading so far this school year.

To mark the milestone accomplishment the school will hold a fun celebration at 9.30 a.m. today.

"Purvis is establishing the habit of celebrating academic excellence and the awards ceremony will be the eighth celebration of reading at the school," said Purvis Primary principal, Roseclaire Bulgin.

In October the `I Love to Read' programme was launched at the school with the words `I love to read' intoned to the tune of `Row row row your boat'.

At that time principal Bulgin also promised the students that she would be willing to do whatever they chose if they reached 500,000 minutes of reading at home this year.

"To my feigned chagrin the children chose to dunk me on achievement of the very lofty goal," the principal said.

"I begged them to let it not be too early in the year before it gets warm and I encouraged each child to read every day for 20 minutes with parents, grandparents, siblings, relatives, friends or by themselves," she added.

Over the past seven months, students at Purvis have submitted monthly calendars where they have logged the number of minutes each has read for the month.

By the end of April every Purvis student was a participant in the programme.

"Each month readers received awards and a variety of rewards such as `I Love to Read' pencils, cake and ice cream, a fun day and lots of encouragement from teachers and parents," said Mrs. Bulgin.

Today Mrs. Bulgin will keep her promise and will be dunked in a dunking pool at the school.

Joining her will be Permanent Secretary for Education Michelle Khaldun.

"Mrs. Khaldun, an advocate for children and literacy, heartily laughed as she agreed to do `whatever it takes to make learning fun and exciting'," Mrs. Bulgin said.

Next year the `I Love To Read' programme at the school will be augmented by the Madeline Joell Nest Egg Fund.

"The fund has made it possible for us to purchase and implement the Reading Counts programme with 650 Reading Counts books and two Reading Counts computers," Mrs. Bulgin said.

"Most significant has been the enthusiastic support of the reading programme as parents have attended awards ceremonies and have supported and monitored their children in reading everyday."