Reading

At Lancaster, we place reading at the heart of our day to day routines. Reading is a fundamental life skill; it is essential to fully access society and enhances employability as adults. As young people, developing reading enables students to fully access the demands of the secondary curriculum and the GCSE specifications across all subjects.

Students start their days, during tutor time, with a minimum of 15 minutes reading of a class novel. Diverse stories from a range of authors, genres and decades have been selected to foster a passion for reading with the aim of building lifelong reading habits, whilst broadening their perspectives of the world and the people in it. This, and all reading that takes place at Lancaster Academy, is designed to refine and develop students’ vocabulary and comprehension of texts.

In our subjects

Every subject, from English to Maths, from Art to P.E. places an emphasis on reading and teachers endeavour to expose students to a varied diet of fiction and non-fiction texts through Disciplinary Reading. Our goal is to broaden and enhance student’s knowledge and understanding of all the subjects they study.

Reading development

We celebrate the diversity and individuality of our students and understand that not all pupils have the same confidence or ability with their reading. For these students, we have bespoke interventions, led by a team of experienced staff, which take place during school hours and target the specific needs of each student.

Students in Key Stage 3 are encouraged to develop their reading outside of the classroom and are expected to complete one hour of reading a week, through the online e-reader platform we offer: MyOn. More information regarding this can be obtained through your child’s English teacher.

Young Ambassadors

The Young Ambassadors we have for reading work throughout the year to offer exciting events and competitions in which reading is encouraged, recognised, praised and rewarded. In 2023, students demonstrated their entrepreneurial skills and took over the Scholastic Bookfair, selling over £200 worth of books whilst raising money for the school library!

Lancaster Academy Library

Our library is open for students to browse and borrow books during tutor time on a Tuesday and Thursday and English classrooms also have book loaning systems in place. Last year, we loaned almost 400 books to students across the year, with hundreds more books being read online through MyOn.

Contact Information

If you have any queries regarding your child’s experience of reading at Lancaster Academy, please contact Ms Eatwell in the first instance via email: leatwell@lancaster.leicester.sch.uk

We have lots of exciting things planned for reading and we can’t wait to share them all with you!