Reading at O Castro

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”

Our focus is to help our students become passionate readers, and at the start of the term we opened our new secondary library and with it created opportunities for our students to help coordinate this. The new student library leader roles will help to both run the library at lunch and breaks and also encourage activities to engage students from across the school.

Communication with our families

Our year also began by ensuring we had a deeper understanding from our families of how they read or encourage reading at home. The reading survey that was sent to parents included questions on attitudes and time dedicated to reading and, of course, challenges with ensuring that this happens at home! We understand how hectic our families' lives are and the way that children's screen time needs to be managed. The response to the survey was incredibly useful, and the results were summarized and shared with our parents in a communication in early October.

Parent Workshop

The next stage was to invite parents into school, both to explore the results and also how we will further support this. The Parent Reading Workshop that ran in October was also an opportunity for us to explain to parents how we encourage and nurture reading at school and, of course, why. We discussed steps to success for reading at home, demonstrating useful reading strategies and looking at making it a fun and relaxing experience for children.

Next Steps

Throughout this year, we will run monthly events, involving families as much as possible, with a different reading theme. Thus, exposing children to a range of genres and helping them to find a book that they will love. This will include a non-fiction month, Comic Con, poetry, and a readathon. We will also be celebrating our annual reading events, such as Globeducate READS, across the Globeducate community.

Another priority is ensuring that families have access to high-quality books in a range of languages, which we will aid through our biannual book fairs and termly book swaps.

In addition, over the course of the year, there will also be videos shared via email and Class Dojo, which promote a selection of books that can be enjoyed at home.

Our overall goal is to establish a true reading for pleasure culture within O Castro, in which our children enjoy reading and talking about books not just because they have to for lessons but because they want to. A culture in which children choose to read individually and together, recommending books to each other, and are not afraid to try something new because, as we all know, the social, emotional, and cognitive benefits of reading are huge