Reading for pleasure at Four Oaks

At Four Oaks we believe that children deserve a rich curriculum which encourages extensive reading of whole books and other kinds of texts.  We believe that active encouragement of reading for pleasure is a core part of every child’s educational entitlement, whatever their background or attainment because we know that extensive reading and exposure to a wide range of quality texts make a huge contribution to our pupils’ educational achievement.

At Four Oaks we aim to promote the concepts of reading for ‘fun’, ‘enjoyment’ and ‘pleasure’.  We ensure that we include a range of books within the curriculum as well as the opportunity for sustained reading from a range of other self-chosen fiction and non-fiction texts from our school library and classroom reading areas.  We use our classroom reading areas to promote our favourite texts as well as to encourage children to continue reading texts to support our curriculum.

We believe that all adults who work at Four Oaks should be ‘reading role models’ and we ensure that adults share their favourite texts with the children.  We ensure that there is an opportunity for professional development for teachers to explore the huge range of printed and electronic reading materials to enable them to support children in their reading choices and develop a rich curriculum.

We ensure that reading is a regular agenda for our School Council and staff and senior leadership meetings.  We conduct a pupil voice questionnaire each term to ensure that our children can celebrate the achievements of reading and support the development of the reading provision at Four Oaks. 

Four Oaks promotes the engagement and support from parents and carers by working in partnership through workshops and reading courses.  We use our website and weekly newsletter to celebrate reading achievements at Four Oaks as well as recommend books to our peers.  The achievement in reading of one child from each class is celebrated during a half termly reading assembly.  Parents and carers are invited to watch their child being presented with a certificate and help them choose a book as a prize.  

We are developing close links with our local library on Breck Road and our classes have the opportunity to visit the library with school and their parents or carers.