We are very pleased to award St Nicholas Primary School (Stevenage) a grant to introduce a new reading scheme, including graded reading books and teacher handbooks.
Many children will benefit from this project, as Sue Brinded, Office Manager, explained in her bid:
Not only just the whole school (up to 230 children) but also special groups of children including 34 children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and 77 children with English as an additional language (EAL). This scheme would also benefit 47 children who are Pupil Premium (PP). These children would be split by class so not all taught at the same time but across the school week.
It was obvious from the bid that St Nicholas evaluated the reading scheme carefully before reaching their decision. Some of the (many) advantages they described are:
- The scheme is attractively produced and would enable children to access topic and areas of life they may not otherwise experience.
- This scheme is designed to promote thoughtful responses through its emotional fiction with realistic settings and which will develop children’s comprehension skills. This will be particularly helpful for those SEN children who can struggle with emotional issues.
- The books are finely levelled, making it easy to match every child to stories with the right depth and complexity for them, and helping them to progress.
- Inside cover notes to help children deepen their understanding and support their reading comprehension.
- This scheme supplements our existing scheme and plugs key gaps. Notes help teachers and parents to focus and develop key reading skills.
- Children love to see progress and this scheme allows them to move up through the levels whilst also gaining greater depth within each level.
- We know that these stories are also enjoyed by adults so we expect to see more parents reading with their children and will initiate this by inviting parents in to read with their child.
St. Nicholas further strengthened their bid by securing additional funding for INSET to ensure the school squeezes out the maximum benefit from the scheme.