Literacy at Birches Head Academy.

• We have a whole school approach to teaching reading, including providing targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject.
• We promote active reading by expecting all students to track the text, identify unfamiliar words and improve reading comprehension.

• We provide bespoke literacy intervention to ensure every student is successful in reading.

  Our Disciplinary Literacy Strategy across the school provides reading for understanding; whilst we use our library to promote Reading for Pleasure.

We are all Teachers of Literacy.

Even though the English department will teach key skills of Literacy and Oracy, every teacher should develop and improve standards of Literacy in their own subjects. We acknowledge that all teachers are teachers of Literacy and will help to promote a good standard of Literacy through providing good models and opportunities for pupils to practice reading, writing, speaking and listening.

At Birches Head Academy, we stive to achieve high standards of Literacy through clear expectations. These are:

• Following a whole school approach to teaching reading. This takes place in every subject at least once a fortnight.
• Teacher led reading that takes place three times a week during Academic Review
• Following the whole school approach to teaching reading during every Library lesson.
• Pupils are introduced to new vocabulary and provided with strategies to help them access reading.
• Pupils are required to correct and spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors in their exercise books. Staff will identify and spelling (SP), punctuation (P) or grammatical errors (?).
• Pupils must spell the day of the weeks and months correctly.
• Pupils are required to answer questions in full sentences and in Standard English.

We address gaps in pupil’ reading.

Pupils undertake a short reading assessment (NGRT) at the beginning of each term. This provides us with clear information about their reading age, skills in sentence completion and passage comprehension ability. This data is shared with all staff and is used to inform our specific reading strategies.

Specific Reading Strategies

Fresh Start Inc

Delivered to students who reading ages show they have not progressed from phonetically awareness. Fresh Start is a catch-up intervention delivered by Teaching Assistants that offers a simple but powerful solution to accelerate reading.

Dyslexia Gold

Delivered to students who are below their chronological reading age. Dyslexia Gold targets pupils who need to improve on their reading fluency and comprehension.

The intervention focuses on the following:

• Engaging Eyes – this supports struggling readers who need support with tracking a text.
• Fluency Builder – improves on the pupil’s phonetical skills, supporting with new sounds, improving phonological deficit, and new vocabulary.
• Spelling Tutor – this supports the improvement of spelling and vocabulary.

Better Reader

A 1-1 reading approach with a trained specialist that is delivered for 20 minute four times a week, which accelerates reading comprehension.

Scholastic Read and Respond

Read and Respond takes growing readers and immerses them into 70 timeless titles. Delivered by Teaching Assistants, the intervention improves comprehension and garners a love of reading. The books are ‘brought to life’ through bespoke lessons in a cross-curricular way.

Disciplinary Literacy in English

Our English department have combined Disciplinary Literacy with promote a love for reading and have 15 dedicated texts that they deliver once a fortnight which are designed to open the eyes of the pupils to the world outside of Stoke-on-Trent.

We believe reading is a fundamental cultural experience that enables students to ask questions, gain the empathy and have humility and acceptance, whilst also being fun and good for individual wellbeing.

The Birches Head Academy Literati

Three times a week, pupils are read to by their form tutor during Academic Review. This means that pupils are constantly encouraged to engage in a plethora of different texts and genres. They can delve into fiction and non-fiction texts, exploring exciting new worlds and wonderful characters.

Why do we do it?

• Literati means people with a good standard of education who enjoy and are knowledgeable about a wide range of literature.
• Provides a calm and structured part of the day for all students to re-establish high expectations through routines.
• Models expert reading and fluency to all students.
• Involves every student and promotes a love for reading.
• Emphasises the importance of reading outside of SUBJECT DOMAINS.
• Exposes all students to higher tier vocabulary, cultural capital, and a range of controversial and diverse themes.
• Our selected books for each year are :

Our Reading Culture

Here at Birches Head Academy, reading is the backbone to everything that we do. Whether that be through a challenging and engaging core English curriculum, to celebrating and promoting all our reading successes. We encourage pupils to read for pleasure through and immersive reading culture. We offer a range of exciting activities. These include:

• World Book Day Events
• National Story Telling Week Events
• A yearly Readathon
• National Poetry Competitions
• Creative Writing Competitions
• Guest Speakers
• The 12 days of Christmas Poetry activity
• Birches Book Bingo
• Reading House Points (each house is headed by an influential children’s author)
• Gold, silver and bronze reading awards for students to work towards
• Involvement in our interactive Literacy Tree
• Half-termly ‘immersive’ creative writing activities during library lesson
• Reader of the Fortnight award and inclusion on the relevant display board in the library

Our Library :

Our Library is the heart of our school. To promote the joy of reading for all year groups, we offer full access to the library at break, lunch and after school. Pupils can use this time to read independently, share book recommendations, take part in activities or take books home to read.

Alongside our English lessons, all year 7 and 8 classes spend an hour in the library a week, with Year 9 classes having a library lesson once a fortnight. This provides pupils with the time to fully immerse themselves into a book, explore different genres, and develop their love of reading. We also use this time for guided reading lessons where we focus on understanding and fluency.

Upon their first lesson in the Library, pupils are provided with an induction pack. This will include:

• Top tips to get your child reading
• Overview of the library facilities and expectations
• Extra-curricular timetable
• Calendar of one-off events happening during the coming year
• Rewards (bronze, silver, gold awards, sweets, prizes, end-of-year trip)
• Madam Pince’s Book Bingo (students cross off as many books as possible on their bingo card once they have finished reading them, to be in with a chance of attending the trip at the end of the school year)
• List of recommended reads
• Lexia overview (for those pupils who need it)

Pupil Librarians

Each term we have 10 pupil librarians who help to continue to make the library a well-loved space. They support the librarian with general duties but also offer advice on how to improve the environment for their fellow pupils.

Reading houses

Each pupil in the school is allocated a reading house. Each of the four houses is named after four famous British authors: Deborah Ellis, JK Rowling, Benjamin Zephaniah and David Walliams. Pupil earn a point for their team every time they finish a book. The winning team will be rewarded at the end of the year.

Our Virtual Library: readingcloud.net

The beauty of our school library system is that it can be accessed at school and at home. The Reading Cloud allows pupils to check the status of a book in school, read pupil reviews and learn about a range of authors. Students are also able to submit reviews for books they have read, earning extra points for their house and being in with a chance to win the prestigious Star Review title each month. To be able to access this the pupil needs to type in readingcloud.net. The username is their school email and the password is their date of birth.

Tracking Reading

Of course, the main aim of our reading for pleasure culture here at BHA is exactly that: we want students to get enjoyment and pleasure from what they are reading! However, in order to ensure that students are constantly challenging themselves to improve their reading age and vocabulary, we track student participation in reading at home each library lesson. Each student is set a bespoke target once a fortnight and staff then give them a min-quiz during the next library lesson to check not only that they have met their target, but also that they have understood what they have read, thus boosting those comprehension and inference skills that are so vital to the developing reader.

Reading Journal

This year, all KS3 pupils have been given a Reading Journal. The purpose of this is to encourage pupils to read and write regularly.

For each book the pupils read, they are asked to complete one of the many tasks and activities in the journal. Once completed they are rewarded with ClassCharts points. Pupils can earn bronze, silver and gold awards based on the amount that they read and the activities that they complete.

If you would like further information about what you can do to support your child’s reading development, please contact Miss Roberts.