Sharing reading initiatives and best practice with local primary school

Earlier this month, Cowley Academy we pleased to welcome five Upper Key Stage 2 (UKS2) students from The Donington Cowley Endowed Primary School along with their class teacher, Miss Gilhespy.

The visit was part of the primary school’s dedicated work towards getting their Lincolnshire Reading Pledge Gold Award having already been awarded the Silver Award.

The Lincolnshire Reading Pledge has been developed by Witham St Hugh’s English Hub and L.E.A.D. Teaching School Hub with the aim to ensure every child regardless of their background, needs or abilities becomes a confident, fluent and enthusiatic reader.

As Cowley Academy is proud to be a ‘reading school’ these are the same values and ethos that we share and Mrs Kilby (Head of School), Mrs Poulson (Literacy Lead) and Miss Green (Librarian) were able to demonstrate how we approach reading for pleasure in a secondary setting.

They were able to discuss our DEAR Time (Drop Everything and Read) sessions that take place three times a year across all subjects, the Reading Ambassador programme in Year 10 and the Love of Reading sessions in Year 7 and Year 8 form times. It also provided the perfect opportunity to show our visitors around the new school library.

We are looking forward to welcoming the students back next academic year – one as a Year 7 himself in September, and the others to see DEAR Time in progress when they are in Year 6.