Whole School Reading
At Ormskirk School, our whole-school reading strategy is divided into 3 strands. These are:
- Reading Intervention for Aspiring and Reluctant Readers
- Reading within the Curriculum
- Reading for Pleasure
Further details for each strand can be found below.
1. Reading Intervention
All students complete a reading screening test when they join us in Year 7. This is a standardised, adaptive assessment to measure reading skills against the national average. We use it to identify where intervention may be needed, and then to monitor the impact of intervention and progress made.
Students whose reading score is significantly below their chronological reading age proceed to a diagnostic assessment designed to identify the detail of their gaps.
Those with a phonics need access the Fresh Start Read Write Inc. course from the relevant module.
Fresh Start builds children’s reading accuracy, fluency and stamina in regular slots of 25. Children make as much as two years’ progress in only two months.
Those without a phonics need but whose reading ability requires intervention access our Reading Plus intervention package.
Reading Plus helps students to acquire the skills needed to become a confident, capable readers.
2. Reading within the Curriculum
As is highlighted in our whole school curriculum intent, reading is central to curriculum success for our students. Each department has carefully considered the texts that students will read as part of their learning.
3. Reading for Pleasure
Our school Library is available to students at break, lunchtime and after school. Students have the opportunity to make book requests from our Librarian.
We celebrate World Book Day each year through our curriculum.
We regularly survey our students to find out their reading for pleasure interests.
Our students’ interests also inform our choices for our Interactive Read Aloud programme, where we dedicate 3 periods of the Daily Tutorial Programme to reading for pleasure.
The books we have chosen for Tutor Time Reading curriculum can be found below.
Registration and the Tutor Reading Programme – Term 1 September 2024
At Ormskirk, form tutors read to all students from Years 7 to Year 11 every morning. The books have been chosen to introduce our students to a diverse and challenging range of texts. Here is a list of the books for Term 1.
| Cover | Synopsis / Links to PSHE |
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Year 7 Wonder Auggie, is a young ten-year-old child, who wants to live his life normally, like everyone else. He wants to be ordinary. The truth is that, born with a terrible face abnormality Auggie has been homeschooled by his parents his whole life. And now, for the first time. He is being sent to a real school. He is dreading this moment. All he wants to be is accepted. But can he convince his new classmates that he is just like them, underneath what they see? Emotional wellbeing – talking about emotions sensitively. Healthy friendships – trust, respect, honesty, kindness. Stereotypes – disability. Prejudice/discrimination – disability. Resilience, empathy |
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Year 8 A Monster Calls Connor appears to have the same dream every single night, ever since his mother first fell ill, and especially since she started the treatments that don’t quite seem to be working. But on this particular night, it is different. When he wakes up, he is accompanied by a visitor at his window. It is an ancient, elemental force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous, but important information from Connor… Which is the truth. This captivating book weaves an extraordinary, yet heartbreaking tale of mischief, healing and most of all, the courage it takes to survive. Emotional wellbeing/ love and loss – talking about emotions sensitively/exploring change loss and grief. Resilience/families/relationships and how they contribute to human happiness. |
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Year 9 The Henna Wars When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants – as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to lose her family, but she also doesn’t want to hide who she is, which only gets harder once Flávia walks into her life.Beautiful and charismatic, Flávia takes Nishat’s breath away. But as their lives become tangled, they’re caught up in a rivalry that gets in the way of any feelings they might have for each other.Can Nishat find a way to be true to herself… and find love too? |
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Year 10 The Hate U Give 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 YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice. Friendships and responsibility. Respect, honesty and conflict. Stereotypes – race, gender, sex. Prejudice and discrimination – historical context and media literacy. |
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Year 11 Orangeboy Winner: Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Not cool enough, not clever enough, not street enough for anyone to notice me. I was the kid people looked straight through. NOT ANY MORE. NOT SINCE MR ORANGE. Sixteen-year-old Marlon has made his mum a promise – he’ll never follow his big brother, Andre, down the wrong path. So far, it’s been easy, but when a date ends in tragedy, Marlon finds himself hunted. They’re after the mysterious Mr Orange, and they’re going to use Marlon to get to him. Marlon’s out of choices – can he become the person he never wanted to be, to protect everyone he loves? Friendship and responsibility – right wrong behaviours. Respect, honesty and conflict. Stereotypes – race, gender, sex. Prejudice and discrimination – historical context and media literacy. |
| Cover | Synopsis / Links to PSHE |
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Year 7 Trash Raphael lives on a dumpsite, eking out a living sifting through rubbish. One unlucky-lucky day, he makes an extraordinary and deadly discovery. Now he and his two friends, Gardo and Rat, are wanted by the corrupt forces that run the city and will stop at nothing to get back what they’ve lost. From the slums to the mansions of the elite, it’s going to take all of their quick-thinking and fast-talking to stay ahead. And to stay alive |
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Year 8 Cirque du Freak The chilling saga of Darren Shan, who is the ordinary schoolboy, that is plunged into the unknown vampire world. In the story of Cirque Du Freak. Darren decides to attend a banned freak show, with the accompaniment of his best friend, Steve. With the wonderfully gothic “Cirque Du Freak”, which includes the weird, yet intensely frightening half human/half animal, who appears to interact in a terrifying manner to the audience. Also, Darren is known for this high affection of spiders, and ‘falls in love’ with Madam Octa, an enormous tarantula who is owned by the man, titled Mr Crepsley. Where he determines to steal this questionable creature, with the capability of training it to perform amazing deeds. But his daring theft goes horribly wrong. And he finds himself having to make a bargain with the creature of the night… |
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Year 9 Refugee Boy This story examines the treatment of child refugees in this country and what parents will do to try to keep their children safe. Alem is on holiday with his father for a few days in London. He wakes one morning to find his father has left him. Alem is now on his own, in the hands of Social Services and the Refugee Council. His fate rests in their hands. He will be in danger if he is sent back to Ethiopia. With an Ethiopian father and an Eritrean mother, and both countries at war, he is welcome in neither place. He is now an asylum seeker… Friendship and bullying – respect, honesty, and kindness. Stereotypes – race, religion. Tolerance – wider societal issues. Prejudice, discrimination, and extremism. Communities – media literacy. British values. |
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Year 10 The Book Thief In Nazi Germany, the country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier - and will become busier still. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed forever when she picks up a single object, abandoned in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, and this is her first act of book thievery. So begins Liesel's love affair with books and words, and soon she is stealing from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library… wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times, and when Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, nothing will ever be the same again. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. Now a major film from Twentieth Century Fox starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson. |
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Year 11 In Year 11, we focus on revision and study skills from term 2 onwards |
| Cover | Synopsis / Links to PSHE |
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Year 7 Safiyyah's War War comes to the streets of Paris and Safiyyah’s life changes for ever. Her best friend’s family have fled, and the bombing makes her afraid to leave the mosque where she lives. But when her father is arrested by the Nazis for his secret Resistance work, it falls to Safiyyah to run the dangerous errands around the city. It’s not long before hundreds of persecuted Jews seek sanctuary at the mosque. Can Safiyyah find the courage to enter the treacherous catacombs under Paris and lead the Jews to safety? |
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Year 8 Boy, Everywhere This debut novel chronicles the harrowing journey taken by Sami and his family from privilege to poverty, across countries and continents, from a comfortable life in Damascus, via a smuggler’s den in Turkey, to a prison in Manchester. A story of survival, of family, of bravery … In a world where we are told to see refugees as the ‘other’, this story will remind readers that ‘they’ are also ‘us’. |
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Year 9 One of Us is Lying Set in an American school sometime after 2010, this story examines how the persona we project in our daily lives can be an illusion. It details the power of social media to wreck lives, primarily because it is now the go to place for news and gossip for a whole generation. Many of our students and young people live their lives on social media, desperate for likes and fearing that their perfectly curated image will be exposed. As the four main characters are brought together they discover how wrong they have been to judge each other by the image they project. |
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Year 10 Things a Bright Girl Can Do Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells and the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote.Evelyn is seventeen, and though she is rich and clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, and vows to pay the ultimate price for women’s freedom.May is fifteen, and already sworn to the cause, though she and her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who’s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together and in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place.But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May and Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice? |
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Year 11 In Year 11, we focus on revision and study skills from term 2 onwards |
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