Reading is at the heart of our curriculum intent at West Grantham Secondary Academy. We recognise the role that reading has in enabling students to become life-long learners who lead fulfilling, successful lives. We take a rigorous approach to the teaching of reading across all parts of the curriculum, and aim to develop learners’ confidence and enjoyment in reading.

At West Grantham Secondary Academy we:

  • Explicitly teach vocabulary skills in every area of the curriculum
  • Provide students with an enriching, rigorous and challenging ‘learning journey’ in every part of the curriculum
  • Provide a range of opportunities to promote students’ wider reading and reading for pleasure
  • Give time and value to reading for enjoyment through our whole class reading texts

We are a ‘word rich’ school. Across the curriculum, students are explicitly taught the subject-specific vocabulary that is essential for their development in that domain. Students are taught to ‘read like a scientist’ (or geographer, or linguist, or mathematician and so on). Keywords are shared and displayed across the school each week and students encounter them every single day.

We are a Reading Community. All staff model reading and spend time reading a book with their tutor groups each week. We support students in finding books they will love, run reading challenges and book clubs.