Alternative provision schools share Reading Plus effectiveness and how it’s ‘transformed engagement for reading’
After struggling to get students engaged with reading, a challenge faced by many alternative provision schools, Phoenix Park Academy extensively researched reading development programmes to try and remedy this.
Our adaptive, online programme Reading Plus was soon implemented after it stood out from the other programmes available, and has since transformed reading engagement across the three alternative provision sites within Wellspring Academy Trust:
- Phoenix Park Academy.
- Phoenix House.
- Sevenhills Academy.
“Reading at alternative provision, especially in Key Stages 3 and 4, has been historically difficult to get students to consistently read and show progress. Reading Plus has been able to show both.” - Neal Watts
Read the full case study to discover Reading Plus’s effectiveness from Assistant Principal of Phoenix Park Academy and Sevenhills Academy Neal Watts – including its impact on supporting curriculum planning, reading progress and building engagement.
Overall effectiveness of Reading Plus
Our engagement for reading was extremely low across our three sites. As an alternative provision school, reading can be very difficult for our kids to engage in.
We didn't have a central reading scheme across our sites, so there were a lot of different things going on that weren’t aligned.
Reading Plus has since improved engagement hugely - and it's been able to track progress clearly, which we've not been able to do previously. The programme aligns with the students’ reading levels from diagnostic assessments, it pitches the right starting level and continues to adjust as they progress through the programme.
Increasing reading engagement in students
Students didn't read enough before Reading Plus.
I remember it as clear as day, when it was reading time students would sit there with a book in their hand and pretend to read - and there was no way of tracking that either.
Now, with the tracking system on Reading Plus, you can clearly see who is reading and doing well. This level of analytical data ensures we know how effective the programme is.
Students also enjoy the programme. One student said, “I find it easier than picking up a book and answering questions because they're online.”
When I asked her if she thinks her reading has improved, she said, “Yes, definitely.”
Building a reading culture in school
Reading Plus has transformed engagement for reading across our three alternative provision sites. If you saw the reading engagement from when we first had the programme to now, the contrast is immense.
Our Reading Leads across our three sites (Merry, Sara and Lewis) have promoted and driven Reading Plus outstandingly at their schools, ensuring that reading has been made a priority with our students and staff. They have been the driving force behind the success and increased engagement in the programme!
As engagement increased, we are now able to run inter-house competitions. Across our three sites, we now run a successful Champions League reading competition based on engagement. We are just starting our second competition after how successful the first one was.
All the tutor groups are put into teams and, using Reading Plus data in accordance with our attendance data, we created a formula to show accurate engagement figures. Weekly leaderboard updates with these figures show where your team is in the league. The rolling average is really high - some kids even read twice a day. To see children reading like this in an alternative provision school is incredible.
The winner’s prize is an off-timetable afternoon enrichment offer, for example pizza and a film or playing football at the park – it’s up to that particular tutor group.
It's been the talk across all three sites. It has been amazing to hear students talking about reading and shows how far we've come. The next competition is based on ‘average completion’ with a Champions League Trophy for the winning group!
Introducing Reading Plus to teachers
We did find it difficult when we introduced the programme as there was a reluctance around reading from all. Due to the barriers we faced with students not reading and not wanting to read, there was a feeling that you wouldn’t be able to fix that by putting a programme in place.
Now, several members of staff speak to me about the programme and are as equally invested in the Champions League competition as the students.
That itself shows how much has changed because staff feedback usually was “I can't get them to read”. Now it’s, “Our class has read more – we should be higher on the Champions League leaderboard!”
Utilising Reading Plus data for maximum impact
We like the in-built diagnostic reading assessment because it ensures students are accessing the right level of texts. Previously when students would pick up a book, it may not be pitched at the right level for them, whereas Reading Plus does that for you.
The ongoing reporting and data is also very powerful because you can identify who is struggling and specifically in what areas – and utilising this is such a big part of our process. We use the Reading Plus data each Friday for an update across the three sites of how their reading engagement is.
We've created a system that tracks attendance in accordance with this data as well. For example, if a student has only been in school for three out of five days, we know to measure their reading engagement out of three sessions rather than five.
We also use that data specifically for our reading intervention staff to identify focus students to support the following week with targeted interventions.
Implementation and unlimited free support
Like any implementation process, it's not something that's just going to happen overnight. You'll see over time the impact Reading Plus will have.
It's important to have staff on board, understand the programme and get the support from the Reading Plus team - because it's there in abundance to help you.
At the beginning of our implementation, a member of Customer Support showed the whole team how to log in and use all elements of the programme which was key for us.
I don't meet Customer Support as much now simply because I don’t need to, but they've always been very supportive when needs be.
How do you implement Reading Plus at an alternative provision school?
We have a set Reading Plus session timetabled daily across our three sites at different times. They do five Reading lessons every week and a Vocabulary lesson.
Within the Reading lessons, students are presented with comprehension questions after each text to build their skills. We've put in place that if they get below a certain percentage in this quiz, they have to do it again because we now set expectations high. With alternative provisions, it's important to have those systems and processes in place to ensure that, we're not going to fall behind and we’re going to challenge our students to flourish.
One of the things I like most about the programme is that we were able to create a year-long Teaching of Reading curriculum with termly focuses where we specifically teach the skills from Reading Plus which align with the KS3/4 learning objectives. This curriculum that we have designed has enabled us to really focus on those reading skills and has had an impact on our reading data positively this year.
We deliver these sessions on a set day of the week on the timetable, where staff will use lesson plans and resources from the Teacher Tools section within Reading Plus. These lessons have had a real impact and been a real breakthrough.
Book a brief introductory meeting online with one of our Reading Development Consultants to explore the advantages of Reading Plus for your school.
Call:
0191 389 6078 (option 1)
