Reviews Jon Biddle, English lead and NEU rep at Moorlands Primary in Norfolk, is passionate about fostering a love of reading for pleasure. Here he shares ideas and tips for schools to try.
A gift that keeps on giving – for life I AM writing soon after hearing that my school, Moorlands Primary Academy, in Great Yarmouth, was announced as the joint winner of the 2021 Farshore Reading for Pleasure Whole School Award, alongside Lapal Primary School in Halesowen. We’ve been working on developing our school approach to Reading for Pleasure for several years and it’s wonderful to have the efforts of our staff, children and families acknowledged. The numerous benefits of Reading for Pleasure are increasingly recognised in schools: improved reading and writing, broader vocabulary, higher levels of empathy, a better understanding of different cultures, and increased community participation are just some of them. An oft-quoted study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2002 reported that reading enjoyment is more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status. Schools would be unwise to ignore this in the never-ending SATs race.
Read Almost 35 per cent of primary children are from a minority ethnic background, so it is important more your choice of books reflects this ideas from readers ends up being my legacy to Jon next took place in my local Kwik Fit a couple of issue teaching, I’m fine with that. years ago. I was waiting to hear how much
Society benefits in the long term The real impact of creating lifelong readers isn’t measurable at the end of a half-term, an academic year or even a key stage. It comes further down the line, when those readers are reaping its rewards and society as a whole is benefiting. The Government needs to trust education professionals and understand that not everything in school is a quick fix where microscopic percentage changes in data need to be plotted on a line graph every few days. Earlier this year, I received a message from a pupil I’d taught almost a decade ago. They wanted to let me know they had just completed their first year studying criminology at the University of London and were sure that having a strong reading culture at primary school was a major factor in their educational success. It reminded me of an incident that
Leaving a legacy of lifelong readers I was desperately hoping that his next sentence would include the phrase “50 per cent discount” but it wasn’t to be. The fact he actually remembered and cared enough to bring it up meant a huge amount and, in reality, encounters like this are the reason most of us stay in the profession. It’s certainly not because of the pay, workload or conditions. If the fact that I’ve helped create lifelong
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of my salary the car was going to cost this time, when one of the mechanics who’d been working on it came over, shaking his head sadly, as mechanics are wont to do, and told me that it was going to be expensive, mate. He then smiled, thanked me for encouraging him to read the Alex Rider series when he was in my class 15 years previously and told me that he still loved reading (try and measure that, Ofsted).
educate Your magazine from the National Education Union (NEU)
In November, the fourth Reflecting Realities report from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, which explores ethnic representation in children’s books, was released. It shows a steady upwards trend, with 15 per cent of the books published in 2020 featuring characters of colour. However, when taken alongside the fact the 33.9 per cent of children attending primary school in England are from a minority ethnic background, it shows that there’s still a long way to go before all children are represented in the books they read. Please bear this in mind when purchasing books for the classroom and deciding on which books to read. I’ll be writing more about this hugely important issue in a future article. Enjoy the rest of the term and try to keep focussed on what’s important: the children we teach. @jonnybid
