A Reading Culture and a Love of Reading
Transition Novel – After the War by Tom Palmer
Our encouragement of reading starts with transition. Before starting with us, Year 6 are introduced to a local contextualised story, ‘After The War’ by Tom Palmer. They are each provided with the novel, questions and tasks to complete during the summer. This is then followed up in lessons and a visit from the author and to the location of the novel.
Synopsis: The Second World War is finally over and Yossi, Leo and Mordecai are among three hundred children who arrive in the English Lake District. Having survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, they've finally reached a place of safety and peace, where they can hopefully begin to recover.
But Yossi is haunted by thoughts of his missing father and disturbed by terrible nightmares. As he waits desperately for news from home, he fears that Mordecai and Leo - the closest thing to family he has left - will move on without him. Will life by the beautiful Lake Windermere be enough to bring hope back into all their lives?
Year Group Guided Reading
In addition to the reading book that each pupil carries as part of their core equipment, each year group is given an age-appropriate anthology of short stories, poems and other narrative non-fiction texts which is read for pleasure with their form tutor during form time.
This provides pupils with constant exposure to quality texts and allows all students to experience the joy of reading and have good reading and oracy skills modelled through teaching. It also gives students exposure to a wide range of literary genres, styles, written by writers from a range of eras, backgrounds and cultures and as such, supporting our goal to provide more diversity in our students’ literature.
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SPARX Reader
Sparx reader is an engaging and supportive online reading platform used both in school and at home.
We set SparxReader homework in English for Years 7-10. We believe this is extremely beneficial for our students as it ensures that they are reading actively and independently each week. It provides our students with access to a wide range of genres which are tailored to their reading age and ability. Sparx is designed to match to the students’ reading age by making them complete a reading test before their books are assigned to them. This test is vital to ensure our students have access to texts that will be beneficial in supporting their development in reading.
Literacy Lessons
Fortnightly Literacy lessons at KS3 which include 30 minutes reading a whole class reader chosen to complement the themes explored during the English curriculum. We hope that this helps develop students’ ability to read with accuracy, fluency and proficiency whilst also creating a love and appreciation for reading and the literary heritage. Literacy lessons also include literacy activities to help promote and improve accuracy.
Examples of some of the whole class readers include:
Year 7 Novel – A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Synopsis: Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It’s ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. Patrick Ness takes the final idea of the late, award-winning writer Siobhan Dowd and weaves an extraordinary and heart-breaking tale of mischief, healing and above all, the courage it takes to survive.
Year 8 Novel – In the Sea there are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda
Synopsis: I read somewhere that the decision to emigrate comes from a need to breathe. The hope of a better life is stronger than any other feeling. My mother decided it was better to know I was in danger far from her; but on the way to a different future, than to know I was in danger near her; but stuck in the same old fear. At the age of ten, Enaiatollah Akbari was left alone to fend for himself. This is the heart-breaking, unforgettable story of his journey from Afghanistan to Italy in an attempt to find a safe place to live.
Year 9 Novel – Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius