Winner of the Egmont Reading for Pleasure Award In partnership with the OU and UKLA, 2018

Whole School Award

For the Love of Reading

St Matthew’s C of E Primary School

Context

St Matthew’s C of E Primary School serves an area of Birmingham with a high index of disadvantage and approximately 75% of the children are eligible for the pupil premium. A high percentage of children in the school also come from homes where English is a second or third language. A key target within the school development plan was, “to further develop strategies to extend the most able children to ensure that they are stretched and challenged” and developing the reading for pleasure pedagogy across the school was chosen as a key lever.

OU Research inspiration and rationale

This whole school project was inspired by the TaRs research findings on establishing reading communities and developing a reading for pleasure pedagogy, including provision of social reading environments, ensuring all children were regularly read to, nurturing independent reading and facilitating book talk of different sorts. A new reading for pleasure policy (agreed in 2016) was written with reference to Teachers as Readers/Building Communities of Engaged Readers, UKLA, 2009; English Curriculum Review and Planning Tool, 2014; and Reading for Pleasure, NUT, 2014.

Aims

To ensure that every child in the school learns within the context of a social reading environment (ensuring pathways to challenge for the most able as well as support for the less confident).

To ensure that every child is regularly read to (in acknowledgement of studies showing that children who are regularly read to do better in school socially and academically).

To ensure that children have access to a wide range of books from which they can choose to read independently, for pleasure.

To encourage and develop informal book talk and recommendations so children learn to be courageous and discriminating readers.

Outline

For the reading for pleasure policy to be successfully implemented, every member of staff needed to be involved. School INSET and staff meetings have explained the pedagogy behind the policy and offered teachers regular opportunities to refresh and broaden their knowledge of children’s literature. In addition, personalised advice and support is available from the English subject lead, who facilitates an OU/UKLA Reading for Pleasure Teacher Group, which meets at the school/Peters Bookshop every month. It is open to all staff and is regularly attended by our teachers.

Within each classroom and in every spare corner of the school, a reading for pleasure display has been set up, alongside an inviting, age-appropriate book corner or class library. These provide a rich and varied selection of reading matter, including comics, up to date copies of a children’s newspaper, fiction, non-fiction and poetry and takes into account the pupils’ interests and genders. The school subscribes to magazines, newspapers and comics such as First News, Lego magazine, the Beano and National Geographic Kids. The aim is to widen the selection of reading material available and to emphasise reading for pleasure across the curriculum.

Teachers are encouraged and supported to contribute proactively to their class libraries, by including their own books and personal favourites to share with the children, modelling their enthusiasm for and knowledge of children’s literature.

Every class has a termly author/poet focus. They are expected to find out about, read and use the author/poets work. This work is often shared on inspirational display boards around the school to give children ideas about what to read next.

Occasionally, the authors themselves come to visit!

We have invested in national reading for pleasure initiatives. Story Hunters ensures that every child in Year 3 accumulates their own library of 18 books, across the year. Within school, they are regularly given the opportunity to share and discuss the books. A successful meeting with parents (attended by 80% of those eligible), explained the project and encouraged parental involvement. Optional follow up activities are also sent home and children are rewarded for bringing completed tasks back to school. A letter from a pupil to the head teacher shows how much the children love their personal library of books and how this is establishing a culture of enjoyment of reading at home!

Reading Gladiators provides the basis for a book group for the most able readers in Years 2, 4 and 6. Reading discussions and follow up activities are provided weekly in book group settings, which emphasise enjoyment and imagination, not formal testing.

Regular reading for pleasure weeks replace the usual guided reading structure, with a carousel of activities, emphasising reading for fun. Two days are spent on whole class reading and three days are spent on browsing and choosing books and comics, or 1:1 reading with a teacher or TA, or reading with other classes. Valuing and promoting children’s agency led to a group of boys creating and selling their own comic, to staff, children and visitors.

Other events have been held to stimulate parental engagement and raise their awareness of the importance of reading with their children. A weekly reading group for parents helps EAL parents to build their own literacy and knowledge of stories. Parents have also come in to make books.

One of our yearly ‘Book Bashes’ involved our parents being invited into school to read with their children. On one memorable World Book Night, the school arranged for every parent to be gifted a copy of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. The event involved all the children and staff in onesies, tea and cake and plenty of booktalk!

The school newsletter even contains recommendations for good stories for parents to read with their children.

Teachers have been given dedicated curriculum time to read aloud frequently to children. Training has ensured that the experience is interactive (to improve comprehension and confidence) and that the choice of texts is varied. This has encouraged children to try new types of books. Reading surveys have shown that the majority of children enjoy being read to: for example, one comment mentioned that, “it helps me to feel closer to the person reading”.

Rights of the reader posters are displayed prominently in every classroom. These are introduced to the children, at the start of each year.

The school has recently begun to operate as a testing centre for the Children’s Book Award. This is opening access to a wide range of new titles and encouraging the children to read critically and discuss their opinions of new books in informal book groups.

Impact

Reading surveys have revealed hugely positive attitudes towards reading. In Year 3, 79% said that they either liked or absolutely loved reading for fun at home. Approximately half would be happy or very happy to read instead of playing at home or at school.

Years 5 and 6, 80% rated reading at school as 6 or above on a scale of 1-10 91% rated reading for fun at home as 8 or above (while 69% gave reading for pleasure at home the highest possible rating).

The reasons given for reading when combined read something like a reading manifesto. These quotations give a flavour of the themes which emerged:

I read because:

It makes me happy when I am sad. I like going over things in my mind.

I read because I learn new things.

I feel like I am in a different place.

I enjoy finding out things and having a laugh.

It makes me feel calm and relaxed.

It makes me happy and I get lost in books.

0

5

10

15

20

I love it I like it It's okay I don't like itvery much

I don't Iikeit at all

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How do you feel about reading for fun at home?

As detailed in the research, we have found that our relentless drive to embed reciprocal and interactive reading for pleasure communities, over just constant instruction and testing, has positively impacted on our attainment in reading.

Reflections on impact the TaRs research had on practice

We have made inroads but we are keen to develop parental engagement further. We see our school library as important to this aim. We have run storytelling sessions for Reception parents and their pre-school age children, using dual-language books and would like this to be part of our regular offer. We will also be involving our community, by having a reading picnic in the summer term.

We know we need to keep investing in our school and class library stock, so that a broader range of challenging titles are available and new books are prominently displayed. This will continue to support our children’s reading preferences, as well as widening their repertoires.

We want to develop the role of our Reading Gladiators, by not only getting them to present books to their classes and inviting their friends to expand their choices but also to present their books in assemblies and in the school newsletters. Reading assemblies will also be used to kindle discussion and raise awareness of the vast range of new and classic books, available to children.

Finally, having used the TaRs research to not only widen but to also deepen our reading for pleasure initiatives, we are determined to continue to build a school culture, where there is reciprocity - teachers who read, teaching children who love to read.