Creating a ‘whole school reading’ ethos – Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, I outlined how I launched our Tutor Reading Programme and how it’s developed since September 2018 as part of my role to create a ‘whole school reading’ ethos. I deliberately chose the picture of Spiderman as I really did feel like I’d need to harness my inner superpowers to deliver something as grand as a whole school positive approach to reading – which in our technology driven world – seemed like a near impossible task. Bearing in mind we have a high Pupil Premium intake and many of our students don’t have books at home or read for pleasure, I was hoping that my passion for reading would somehow magically transfer to our 1200+ students! (and staff of course…) I also felt empowered by what I think is perhaps the coolest job title in the land…..Reading Ambassador. I mean, that deserves a badge, right?!

So…how did I set out on my mission to convert teenagers into bibliophiles? Like all good teachers, I invested in some pretty stationery and made lots of lists. I also had a list on my phone for when inspiration ‘struck’ at random times. I knew I had to do something big – something whole school, something that would create a legacy and not just another flash in the pan. And then it came to me – 2018/19 was to be classed as the ‘Year of Reading’. I even had a logo made and got all staff to add it on to their email signature. It felt pretty cool and my plan was to have lots of reading events and strategies throughout the year. It was perfect to have alongside the launch of Tutor Reading and our expansion of the Accelerated Reader programme (extended to include Years 9 & 10) and DEAR Time (extended to include Year 10). I went into assemblies the first week of term to launch this with students and it really felt like I had got the ball rolling.

All of our students in Years 7-10 have a fortnightly English lesson in the library where they can dedicate the whole hour to reading and quizzing. (If only I could have the hour to read for myself as well!) English teachers use the time to look at the diagnostic reports and to have supportive conversations with those students not quizzing and those who are quizzing with poor results. They then use the rest of the time to listen to students read aloud. With my English teacher hat on (I seem to be acquiring a lot of hats lately…) it’s a unique opportunity to spend so much dedicated time on individual students and their reading. It’s especially lovely to hear students reading aloud to you and seeing how pleased they are with their progress. It can also be heart breaking to hear how they or their family members don’t read at home, but then that’s when I’m reminded of why I do this job.

DEAR Time has linked in really well with the expansion to include Year 10 as students see the reading time as working towards meeting their Accelerated Reader points target. It’s also vital element in getting staff involved. Our DEAR Time works on a tri-weekly rota: week 1, reading is the first 10 minutes of lesson 1 and 2, week 2 it’s lesson 3 & 4, then week 3 is lesson 5. Staff are expected to be reading during that time too – not planning, marking or checking emails. This is also monitored by SLT on duty. I personally love DEAR Time as it hits lessons across the curriculum, not just English, so students see it as a whole school thing. It’s also important for them to see their teachers (and not just English teachers) reading for pleasure. To further promote staff as reading models, I introduced the ‘I am Reading’ poster (template will be on my Resources page) which all staff display on their classroom door. It does exactly what it says on the tin – and the fact that students see these posters advertising their teachers’ current reading is extremely powerful.

So with these 3 core elements (Tutor Reading, Accelerated Reader, DEAR Time) already now in place, I could focus on events throughout the Year of Reading, many of which I could write an entire post on, but here they are in brief:

• Macmillan Coffee Morning – with a literary twist. We held this in the library with staff baking and bringing in cake donations. The USP was ‘come and read books whilst eating cake and raising money for a worthwhile cause’ – I’d never seen the library so packed! I also managed to get the manager of our local WHSmith to donate an entire set of Harry Potter and Maze Runner books to raffle off to raise even more money. It was a great success!
• Pizza Box Review – something I saw on Pinterest I think. Students use empty pizza boxes to write a book review. Again I used my skills of persuasion to get our local Domino’s to donate the pizza boxes, along with a gift voucher for the winner.
• Readathon – an amazing charity (recently featured on Children in Need) that get students to raise money for reading books and the money raised provides storytellers and brand new books for children in hospitals. I launched this in assembly with their great promo video (available on YouTube) and our students raised more than £200! I really like the idea of linking reading to charity and this is something I’ll be running again this year. All the resources are free and the Readathon staff are so helpful and friendly – I’d really recommend doing this in your own school.

• World Book Day – historically a big event at our school, with lots of free books being handed out to students during lunchtime and staff members dressing up as their favourite book characters (I chose Alice in Wonderland to twin with my eldest daughter!) I also linked in two other events – the Readathon and pizza box review deadline fell on World Book Day. We also had a short story being read over the tannoy throughout the day, a tradition that staff and students really enjoy.
• LitFest – a whole school Literature Festival that ran in the second week of July. My amazing colleague – English KS3 Lead – set this up and left me to run it whilst going on maternity leave. It was a very stressful week but incredibly successful and immensely rewarding, a perfect celebratory end to our Year of Reading (I will dedicate a blog post to this for those of you interested in doing your own).
• Gift of Summer Reading – I launched this in summer 2018 in which Year 6 students coming in for Transition Day all received a free book to take home and read over the summer holidays along with a letter for them and parents outlining the school’s vision and importance of reading – a key message for our newest intake. Summer 2019 saw this particular initiative combine with our LitFest as Transition Day fell on the first day of the week long festival. Year 6 were treated to a talk by Dan Freedman and then received a copy from his popular Jamie Johnson series to take home over summer. (more details on my LitFest blog post).

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It’s safe to say that it was a busy but successful Year of Reading! Student surveys suggested that students enjoyed reading and were really positive about all the reading opportunities that the school gives them. Reading age data also showed a massive improvement over the year. And even though this academic year isn’t officially a ‘Year of Reading’, I’ve been continuing with many of the same events along with some new ones to continue the momentum and progress.

And have I managed to create a ‘whole school reading’ ethos? Well, I would like to think that every student and staff member now appreciates the value of reading and enjoys the time given in the school day and I’m excited to see what the future holds. As JK Rowling said: “I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”