Every child should have the opportunity to experience the enjoyment of reading, regardless of their need or any barriers they may face. At Unity Academy, we are committed to improving every child’s ability to read and have access to diverse engaging and enjoyable text.
In 2022, the academy began work with a national literacy consultant to promote reading across the alternative provisions so that it inspires and meets the needs of an ever-changing community. The academy has provided training for staff in the provisions and reading was a key area of focus for the quality assurance processes last year.
Unity Academy recognises that due to the needs of some our pupils and their previous learning experiences, they may have gaps in their phonics knowledge. The academy has invested in the Lexonik Leap Programme. This is an intervention programme that looks to close the phonics gap for pupils who may find literacy particularly challenging, rapidly progressing spelling and reading and oracy. Many providers have invested in this programme, however ensuring all pupils access a reading intervention continues to be our priority.
Every child is assessed on entry to the academy, so we have a clear understanding of their reading ability. This is shared with the providers so that interventions can be implemented, and staff have the awareness for adaptations to the curriculum if required.
Reading for pleasure
We encourage all our provisions to incorporate time into the curriculum to experience the pleasures of reading. Many of the provisions have reading areas and engage pupils with a variety of resources such as magazines and newspapers.
World Book Day 2024
We believe promoting the love of reading for all our pupils is essential. World Book Day helps to identify the specific barriers for children in seeing themselves as readers and choosing to do it in their free time. This year our Trust AP Lead visited SHAPE provision to see their creative activities to engage the pupils in reading. Some providers hosted a reading competition and league, others asked pupils to make their favourite book characters out of everyday materials while others visited the new central library and took part in a scavenger hunt across their provision.
World Book Day 2023 – Crisp
We started our day off by having all staff dress up as their favourite book characters, staff put in a fantastic effort!!
Students kickstarted their day with the normal routine of the ‘Crisp Reading League’. Students worked hard to complete the reading task & earn themselves some score points. Our Maths & English tutor (John) had some fantastic tasks lined up as part of our celebration of world book day.
Students were tasked with creating their own short story around the object / theme that they were given. Students created some fantastic work and it is documented below.
We will be creating a book cover so that we can put together our very own, CVP short stories which we can put on on the ’starbooks’ display in the diner.
In the theme of world book day, the mechanics sessions were focused on the importance of workshop manuals.
Music production continued on the theme of world book day by remixing theme tunes of films adapted from books. Students particularly enjoyed creating a ‘drill’ remix of the Harry Potter Main Theme Song.
‘A huge well done to Byron who attends Crisp Vocational provision for all the reading he has done this academic year and for finishing top of the reading leaderboard. We hope you enjoy your well deserved prize!’
