Whole School Literacy
Thomas Becket Catholic School is committed to raising standards of literacy in all its students, through a co-ordinated approach. Every teacher is a teacher of reading.
Here at TBCS we love to read, and we see the value in being able to read for pleasure and read for purpose. The benefits of reading are well documented:
Reading…
- exercises your brain.
- provides knowledge and information about the wider world.
- reduces stress and puts you in a better mood.
- improves concentration and focus.
- helps to develop creativity.
- enriches your language and vocabulary – both spoken and written.
- increases your ability to empathise with others.
- helps you to reflect.
- improves your memory.
- is free entertainment.
Good Readers will deploy several strategies:
- Read with fluency (be able to recognise words at a glance).
- Read with expression.
- Activate prior knowledge of the world.
- Draw on their knowledge of how language works.
- Predict.
- Question.
- Clarify.
- Summarise
Our aim is for all students to leave TBCS as confident readers, who are either at, or above their chronological age. An overview of our strategies for improving reading across the School is shown below:
Implementation
At TBCS we know how well our students can read from the outset. On arrival into the school, we use the New Group Reading Test (NGRT) to assess students’ level of reading in vocabulary and comprehension. This data allows us to create a bespoke intervention program for those who fall below age-related expectations. Our team of trained staff identify gaps quickly, and plan and deliver a range of interventions based on need. Within interventions we use smaller measures such as the YARC assessment to gain more detailed results on specific individual students.
Students are provided with reading opportunities in every curriculum lesson. All teachers have received CPD on how to incorporate reading into their lessons, and how to promote reading skills to students, in particular, reciprocal teaching strategies (predict, question, clarify, summarize). Staff are also equipped to deliver explicit vocabulary instruction through a wide range of activities. This increases students’ exposure to a wide variety of texts, further improving their reading fluency and comprehension.
This CPD is revisited at faculty level to ensure staff continue to embed disciplinary literacy at classroom level. Further QA takes place during regular work scrutiny, where vocabulary and literacy are explicitly monitored through book looks and pupil voice.
Each faculty has a vocabulary curriculum that is mapped with their subject curriculum. Key words are explicitly taught from the vocabulary curriculum with opportunities for retrieval practice in subsequent lessons.
Every Friday morning from 8.40-9.10 am students follow the Reading Program with their form tutors. Teachers model good practice by reading alongside their tutor groups which fosters a culture of reading around school and sees every teacher as a teacher of reading, whatever their subject discipline. Books have been carefully mapped against the curriculum to support student development in areas such as empathy, discrimination, bereavement, justice, relationships and motivation.
This year our students are reading…
Year 7
- Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
- The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
- The Amazing Maurice and his Educational Rodents by Terry Pratchett
- Skellig by David Almond
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
- Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
- Once by Morris Gleitzman
- War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
- The Seeing Stone by Kevin Crossley-Holland
- Whispers in the Graveyard by Theresa Breslin
Year 8
- Buddy by Nigel Hinton
- Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
- Break of Dark by Robert Westall
- Across the Barricades by Joan Lingard
- The Outsides by SE Hinton
- Pig-Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman
- Frankenstein (playscript) by Mary Shelley
- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
- War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
- Trash by Andy Mulligan
- Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
- Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
- The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millward Hargrave
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah
- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Year 9
- Never let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Junk by Melvin Burgess
- The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry by Mildred D Taylor
- Jekyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Frankenstein (playscript) by Mary Shelley
- Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
- The War Of The Worlds by HG Wells
- Stone Cold by Robert Swindells
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
Year 10
- Across The barricades by Joan Lingard
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
- Stone Cold by Robert Swindells
- Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritson
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine l’Engle
- Into Exile by Joan Ligard
- Burn by Patrick Ness
- The Supreme Lie by Geraldine McCaughrean
- Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman
- Junk by Melvin Burgess
- Diary Of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
- Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- War by Michael Morpurgo
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Brighton Rock by Graham Green
- 1984 by George Orwell
- The Call by Peadar O’Guilin
- Trash by Andy Mulligan
Year 11
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
- I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Room by Emma Donoghue
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- The Supreme Lie by Geraldine McCaughrean
- Stone Cold by Robert Swindells
- Educating Rita by Willy Russell
- Burn by Patrick Ness
- Across The Barricades by Joan Lingard
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
- Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
- A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney
- Flying into the Wind by David Leland
- War by Michael Morpurgo
- Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
Students who need bespoke texts to support or stretch their reading can select from a diverse range of texts or recommendations from Mrs Bizimana in EN4 abizimana@tbcs.nor.olicatschools.org
We have a dedicated team of HLTAs who lead reading interventions across all year groups. These have proven to be highly impactful, raising the chronological reading ages of all students who undertake each intervention. Students are targeted in 6-week blocks and collected twice per week.
Precision Teaching is an intervention used with students who have difficulty with decoding and phonics. It involves short one-minute tasks whereby students practice reading high frequency words. Progress is tracked and monitored closely, and changes are made to ensure the child is learning as fast as they can until they are fluent in reading.
Paired Reading is used with students who lack fluency and confidence in reading. This takes place in the library with one of the reading team, who ensures that the level of challenge in a book is appropriate to the reading age of a student. We use the ‘pause, prompt, praise’ strategy to encourage independence, allowing time for self-correction thus increasing confidence and fluency. During this time reciprocal questioning is employed to support comprehension. Echo reading & timed reading are used to improve fluency, emphasis and pace.
Reading at Home is promoted across the school. In year 7 and in year 8 students are set a reading homework that is monitored by both parents and staff through a home reading log. Following on from this all students are encouraged to read around their subjects developing a deeper understanding of the topics they are studying.
Regular whole school and faculty meetings allow for feedback from CPD to take place. Team members share new research and provide updates or concerns with interventions. Any issues are discussed which ensures the quality of the interventions remains high.
The school library supports students and faculties by providing relevant resources to support the curriculum with a challenging and supportive environment to inspire, maintain and develop an enquiring mind and an enjoyment in reading. There are calendared events throughout the year to promote reading for pleasure.
Impact
The impact of the reading strategies used are measured in various ways. All students complete the NGRT at the end of the year to measure progress from the previous year.
Within lessons, teachers use a variety of methods to measure progress which include spelling tests, low stakes quizzes, guided reading sheets and extended writing.
As mentioned, our school library plays an integral part in our drive to improve reading across the school. The number of ‘loans’ from the library gives a guide as to the success of promoting reading for pleasure. Our librarian provides regular reports regarding borrowing from the library. This proves the extent of wider reading within school. Loans can also be broken down by class or year group. Reports show yearly loans in comparison to other years, number of students who have never borrowed a book, percentage of fiction to non-fiction borrowed. As a consequence, this information allows us to target individuals who haven’t borrowed for some time.