This newly-formed group is comprised of Literacy Coordinators, teachers, teaching assistants and school librarians.
We have 25 members signed up and an active 16 members, who attend five CPD sessions starting October 2018 and ending in June 2019. We hope to re-run our group next year as the feedback has been so positive.
Three universities who all specialise in teacher-training, voluntarily run and lead the group.
It is led by Anna Harrison from Roehampton University in partnership with Karen Tulloch & Kerry Assemakis from St Mary's University, Twickenham and Shiv Quinlan from Kingston University.
Our sessions all focus on the research on Reading for Pleasure (Cremin et al 2014) and the resultant Research-Rich Pedagogies on the Open University website, which shares interesting case studies for inspiring schools to develop their own practice.
Some of our projects are:
'Our project will focus on understanding children's reading preferences, by trying to delve much deeper into what our children are actually reading at home and in school. We are hoping to reverse negative statements such as “I'm not a good good reader as I'm still on the reading scheme” by raising our children's motivation to read and building more positive reading identities.' Sally Le Marquand, School Librarian, Bishop Gilpin C of E Primary School
'Our project involved a talk from an Independent Book Store for parents and we're encouraging wider knowledge of our libraries using quick review bookmarks (KS2) or emojis (KS1) which staff and children can use to recommend books to each other'. Deborah Hollingdale, Senior Senco Assistant KS2, St Richard's C of E Primary School
'We are starting a lunchtime story time club so that junior children can come and listen to stories being read aloud', Alison Redgrave, Literacy Coordinator, Collis Primary School. Teddington