With over 73,500 students now registered by over 3000 teachers at nearly 1400 schools, Cummins credited his teacher mum with instilling his own lifelong belief in the power of childhood literacy skills. When he and wife Becky welcomed their first child, son Albie in 2021, Cummins became a UNICEF Australia Ambassador because being a father “changed everything”. “Now as our family grows (with the birth of daughter Edith in February), so does my sense of responsibility to make sure we are building the right foundations for both of our children,” he said. The legendary fast bowler said challenges like the PM’s Spelling Bee “make learning exciting by turning it into a fun and fast-paced game”. “The best part is that kids don’t even realise how much they’re taking in while they play,” he said. “So, they’re getting something good for them, which is spelling and literacy, but in a way they can enjoy.” With Albie nearly four and Edith already six months’ old, Cummins said children’s early years were “when their little minds are taking in the world around them and shaping the rest of their lives”. “It’s in these years where education begins, with every bedtime story we read to them, every curious question and every proud recital of the alphabet,” Cummins said. Education was such a strong force in the Cummins family thanks to his mum’s vocation, so the cricketer “grew up understanding how powerful it can be.” Through his adult education came the knowledge that many children were not given that same chances in life. Travels through famously cricket-mad India have evolved from Cummins simply enjoying being a superstar of the game to visiting UNICEF programs for children. “I’ve seen the barriers that still stand in the way of learning – such as poverty, or just the fact of being a girl,” he said. “In Hyderabad, I visited schools where initiatives are underway to help keep girls in education, giving them the skills but also the confidence to set up their futures. Because the reality for these girls in India is that over half will have left school before Year 10. “I saw these young minds diving into creative problem-solving, STEM, even 3D printing – their imagination alive, and their enthusiasm contagious.” But mastery of such complex subjects, he said, would be impossible without foundation literacy. “Reading opens the doors to knowledge – letting children understand new ideas, be able to express them and find ways to make sense of a range of topics,” he said. “It’s the basis for a lifetime of learning and without it, can leave other forms of education out of reach.” The Hyderabad experience really brought home to him how important foundation literacy was for all Australian kids. “Without it, they aren’t given the chance to discover their full potential,” Cummins said. “It’s something we can’t afford to ignore.” With his Howzat Pat children’s book series out now, Cummins said he grew up loving adventures in books just as much as he loved playing backyard cricket with his brothers. “Working on (Howzat Pat) … I want to encourage Albie and Edi, like my parents encouraged me, to have that same love of sport, curiosity and reading all at once – and I hope the books encourage the same thing for all kids across the country.” With the PM’s Spelling Bee “making the learning part of the everyday fun”, Cummins said combining education with play was “a huge win – no matter what the result is”. “As a parent myself, I know how powerful this kind of learning can be,” he said. “You can see their curiosity, they’re building their confidence, and it also gives them a real sense of achievement.” UNICEF Australia head of policy and advocacy Katie Maskiell said it went further than reading and writing being the building blocks of education – they’re every child’s right. “If a child can learn to read and write, they are allowed curiosity, confidence and a voice,” she said. “Every minute spent learning brings a child closer to a brighter future, and every child deserves that chance, no matter what.” UNICEF currently works in 190 countries creating access to education in circumstances unimaginable to most children here in the Lucky Country. Elsewhere, millions of kids are living in poverty and war zones, amid floods and earthquakes, or in places where simply being a girl means no classroom access. “UNICEF knows education is a beacon of hope for these children,” Ms Maskiell said. Run by free classroom literacy resource Kids News, registrations and the school round of the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee close at 5pm AEST on Friday 22 August. Visit spelling-bee.com.au, kidsnews.com.au For more information and to support UNICEF’s programs for children, visit unicef.org.au ABOUT THE BEE ● The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a free, online competition for students in Years 3-8. ● Students compete at their school in three levels: Green level for Years 3-4, Orange level for Years 5-6 and Red level for Years 7-8. ● They get 30 randomly selected words from their competition level and have 25 seconds to type each answer. The students with the most correct words in the fastest time progress to finals. ● Teachers can register their students until August 22, when the school round ends. ● State and territory finals will be held September 1-5 and the national finals on September 10-11. ● The national champion in each age group wins a trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister, an iPad, HarperCollins book pack and a $1000 voucher for their school. Details: kidsnews.com.au, spelling-bee.com.au Originally published as Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins champions kids’ literacy