Episode 2

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. The first episode 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 headteacher that there is method to his madness?