South Tyneside school smashes national standard for KS2 SATs results with Reading Plus
Forest View Primary School introduced our online reading development programme, DreamBox Reading Plus, to help improve poor reading results and low engagement. Now, their KS2 SATs results are some of the best in the borough, with the amount of pupils achieving EXS surpassing the national standard and an impressive amount of GD.
Current Deputy Head and English Lead Hayley Simpson was already a fan of the adaptive programme before she joined Forest View. Previously, she worked at another school in the borough which started using Reading Plus. After amazing outcomes, with some children progressing two years within eight weeks, Hayley became an advocate – speaking at local literacy networks and recommending the programme to help other schools.
Read below to discover from Hayley how the programme’s comprehensive data, elements that increase reading speed and intervention support materials help to prepare for SATs.
“It's very easy to use, very comprehensive for monitoring progress and the children love it.”
Improved KS2 SATs results
We knew other schools had had success using Reading Plus in Year 6 for SATs results so we thought we would give it a try.
Historically, we’ve had quite poor results in reading, but we've had Reading Plus for quite a long time now and it's been really successful. Now our results are some of the best in the borough.
In our 2024 Reading SATs, we got 96% EXS (13% higher than last year) and 33% GD (4% higher than last year). The national standard was 74% for EXS, so we were 22% above that - which is massive.
Preparing for SATs
Reading Plus has definitely helped with pupils’ reading speeds. Using the programme, we're able to get our pupils up to a standard where they can read independently at the right speed for the SATs paper.
We also can use data from the programme as evidence for the children who need that 25% extra time.
Encouraging reading engagement
One of the reasons Reading Plus was implemented was because our reading engagement was low. We've had a big push on reading for pleasure and reading in general in school.
Our pupils love Reading Plus. We celebrate pupil achievements on our weekly leaderboard using Reading Plus data. The top three get a huge round of applause as well as being awarded their certificates in the Friday celebration assembly. We give the programme a high profile so the children want to use it.
Now the children look forward to reading and to going to the library. We have boxes on our schoolyard with books. We've got reading ambassadors. There's lunchtime library club. We get the parents in to do reading workshops.
We also wanted to try to get pupils to read at home, which Reading Plus does. To be successful, it had to have that fun element, which Reading Plus has got.
Free support for easy implementation
The implementation process was pretty easy. The Reading Plus Customer Support Team have been great. There's lots of help available on the website anyway, but whenever we need help with anything that we can't find, I email the team and get a response straightaway.
Supporting teachers with accurate reporting
Reading Plus reduces my workload massively. As the programme is tailored to each child and progresses at their individual level, I don't need to differentiate texts for these sessions - only for our separate reading lessons.
We use Reading Plus data in pupil progress meetings to show that children are moving in the right trajectory or to discuss what we could put in place if there's anybody who is stagnated.
The fact that it tells you fluency, comprehension and vocabulary strengths and skill gaps means we can give the children the right provision for intervention.
The programme also provides ready-made lesson plans and worksheets aligned with the KS2 content domains in their Teacher Tools section, meaning I can easily do one-to-ones with the children struggling wherever they have a gap.
Enhancing knowledge across the curriculum
Reading Plus definitely has a positive effect on the wider curriculum. For example, when doing the Vikings, children would comment if they saw something on the programme that's linked to what we've been learning.
Or sometimes if they’ve been reading a text about something we’re learning, they'll tell you a fact they read on Reading Plus about it.
How Forest View Primary School use Reading Plus
We're situated in a very deprived area and our children don't get much reading at home so we need to put a lot into them at school. We make sure the children have an hour and a half on Reading Plus every week. Our Year 6s use the programme for two morning sessions alongside guided reading in the run up to SATs. The rest of the year, the sessions take place on an afternoon.
Within class, we use the Real-Time Activity Dashboard where you can see pupils’ activities on the programme live which helps us provide timely support. For example, if I can see a struggling student hasn’t been making use of support features like ReReads which allows them to revisit a section of text, I can encourage them to use it.
If Reading Plus senses a student is struggling and puts them in support mode with additional scaffolds, then I also tend to float around the classroom to make sure they're doing the right thing and keep them on task.
Using the real-time reporting also enhances our celebrations as it notifies us when somebody has levelled up.
The flexibility allows us to use the programme in a way that works for us to ensure our pupils are best prepared for SATs. Year 5 are added to the programme near the end of the year, completing three 30 minute sessions a week and continue to use it once they move into Year 6.
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)
