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Reading and Spoken Language
At Uplands, we strongly believe reading and literacy is fundamental for success in school and beyond.
Young people who leave school without good literacy skills are held back at every stage of their lives. It is so vital that we support and encourage our students to keep reading for pleasure. In reading, we encounter thousands upon thousands of words which we may never come across in daily speech, and it helps us understand the world is wider and more complex than ourselves.
Whole school reading strategy
At secondary school, reading changes from learning to read to reading to learn. Our school wide reading strategy across the curriculum uses disciplinary reading to emphasise ways of knowing and communicating knowledge within each subject discipline. We understand that reading a story requires different knowledge and skills to reading a science experiment report and reading a problem-solving question in maths requires different strategies to reading a complex geographical multimodal resource. We use a subject specific approach so that our students are taught to read and understand vocabulary, text structures and patterns common to reading material used in the different disciplines. Often the texts students read assume a background knowledge so at the core of our reading strategy is vocabulary acquisition and building general knowledge to place new vocabulary in context. We recognise that it is important not just to read fiction but to read books and articles connected to the subjects students love and feel passionately about.
Celebrating and understanding diversity and equality in the curriculum at Uplands: age, disability, sex and gender, including gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation.
A love of reading
Our expectation is that every student should be reading at home for a minimum of 20 minutes per day. We encourage this by providing a reading book each term for KS3 students to take home as part of the reading curriculum in English.
We also work with lovereading.co.uk to develop bespoke recommended reading lists for our students. These are full of new and exciting contemporary fiction and non-fiction titles to help inspire students who aren’t sure what to try next:
English Department Fiction Reading Books
Events and Activities
The school takes part in a number of exciting events and activities to promote reading and improve levels of oracy. This includes the Literacy Trust’s Bookbuzz for Years 7 and 8; the South East Book Awards, our own Uplands' Book Day as part of World Book Day celebrations, and visits from authors. We also run an immensely successful speech competition in Year 8, a poetry competition in Year 7, and will be entering the national KS3 Magistrates Mock Trial competition. New clubs for Term 5 include a RAP poetry club and a creative reading and writing club.
Book recommendations
This term’s book recommendation for KS4 is the edgy and contemporary read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
In a Nutshell: Fighting for Justice | Black Lives Matter | Stunning, vital wake-up call of a novel about racism, social inequality and not giving up told through the eyes of an incredible, unforgettable sixteen-year-old.
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping novel about one girl's struggle for justice.
The term’s book recommendation for KS3 is Voyage of the Sparrowhawk by Natasha Farrant.
In a nutshell: A thrilling roller-coaster of an adventure full of emotion and heart. Winner of the Costa Children's Book Award 2020.
In the aftermath of World War One, everyone is trying to rebuild their lives. If Ben is to avoid being sent back to the orphanage, he needs to find his brother Sam, wounded in action and is now missing. Lotti's horrible aunt and uncle want to send her away to boarding-school (when she has just so successfully managed to get expelled from her last one!) And Clara, their young teacher, is waiting for news of her missing fiancé. Just as they think they've found their feet in the new order, disaster strikes, and Lotti and Ben must get away. And so they hatch a plan — to cross the Channel on Ben's narrow boat and find Sam. And there's something in France that Lotti is looking for, too...
Buffeted by storms, chased by the police, Lotti, Ben, Clara and a growing number of dogs set out on an epic journey, on the search for lost loved ones and a place to call home.
Pets As Therapy — Reading Dog
We are very fortunate to have Pets As Therapy (PAT) volunteer Jane Littlejohn and her PAT Dog Rinda visiting us weekly to support a small group of our students.
Most adults are apprehensive about speaking in public. It is very daunting. Young people are no different. Research shows that young people can become nervous and stressed when reading to others in a group. However, when a PAT Dog enters the group, they often become less stressed, less self-conscious and more confident as the dogs are non-judgemental. Before long the young people are starting to look forward to the reading experience as they are going to read to their new friend, the PAT Dog. PAT Dogs provide comfort, encourage positive social behaviours, enhance self-esteem, motivate speech and inspire young people to have fun. Students may be selected if they lack confidence or have difficulty with reading. The teacher chooses and provides appropriate books. The sessions for each young person are approximately 15 minutes long.