WILLOW TREE ACADEMY 

READING CHAMPIONS PROGRAMME 

We are implementing our Reading Champion strategy to further enhance and develop the teaching of reading in our schools. Learning to read is a crucial life skill and some of our most vulnerable pupils are underachieving in this area. Often they do not read at home, or reading is not valued and this further disengages the children.

The programme supports our daily reading strategies;

These include;

• Guided Reading 
• Teacher Read
• Class Text linked to the theme or topic
• Immersive Reading Environments linked to the class text
• Reading Challenge
• Home Learning linked to text ie dioramas of scenes from books
• Drama and Role Play 
• Small World settings
• Reading across the curriculum

It is our intention to map the provision across each school from on-entry to Y6, and to plot the reading opportunities and experiences boys and girls are exposed to everyday.

In the past we have implemented various ‘buddy schemes’  using both adults and children as role models. Male role models such as football and rugby players have supported in the past but this has been a short intervention.

Other programmes, such as Better Reading, Reading Rescue and Every Child A Reader have been used as intervention programmes, often to great success. However, the climate for reading and the opportunity to read both at home and at school is where we are directing our focus within this programme.

The idea for the programme came from a Breakfast Club member of staff, who has been listening to a child every morning because he doesn’t read at home. It then seemed to make sense that we are missing an opportunity to implement reading during times such as these in our schools.

In order for the programme to work we have decided to make the it very special by choosing special people as Champions and  linking it to the another special person, Hilary Ford. 

Hilary Ford was a volunteer who read with the children at Herringthorpe Junior School for over 20 years. She believed in hard work and that all children, if given the opportunity, could develop a love of reading.  In recognition of her services to education, she was awarded a British Empire Medal by the Queen in the New Years Honours list 2018, following our nomination.

In partnership with her family, we would like her legacy to continue.