Reading for Pleasure

We promote a love of reading to ensure that children develop the knowledge and skills to become life–long readers. We believe this is key for children to access other areas of the curriculum with success. Our 'Reading for Pleasure' Lead and the pupil Reading Ambassadors ensure that reading for pleasure has a high profile in school.

We also promote a love of reading by holding book themed days and events both as individual classes and across the whole school eg World Book Day, Masked Reader, which engages the children with reading. All children are encouraged to participate in the summer reading challenge as well as having events throughout the year. Children are introduced to a variety of literature. Book Fairs are held to allow all children the chance to look at new books of all genres and hopefully purchase a new book of their own to take home. Our well-stocked school library promotes authors and a range of reading material to appeal to all pupils. Children's suggestions for new books are encouraged and purchased. We ensure that our books reflect our inclusive, diverse community.

In Key Stage 2, we have a home-school Reading for Pleasure scheme for children who have progressed from the reading bands. The objective of this scheme is to motivate children to read and enjoy high quality, classic children’s literature, to spark or enhance a lifelong love of reading, with all the benefits that that brings. The scheme is called Reading Explorers, to show that through reading, we can explore the past, present and future; the place we live, other places, outer space and imaginary worlds; and lives like our own and very different lives.

We have a ‘book-based’ approach to our English Curriculum. High quality, challenging, whole-class texts are used to teach the majority of the English objectives and allow children to immerse themselves in the book. The book then provides a purposeful context for high quality writing opportunities.  We encourage children to have pride in their writing across all areas of the curriculum and produce work to a high standard.

Every class has a class text which is read to the children regularly in order to enhance their exposure to high quality texts. the well stocked and recently replenished school library offers children a range of high quality books and the children themselves replenish their class library from the main library at the start of each block. Children are able to choose their own book to read for pleasure, as well as accessing a progressive reading scheme to help them with reading at home. Children need the space and time to make choices about books, and to discover authors and texts they might not get chance to look at outside of school. 

Summer 2024 

Year 2 had a wonderful enrichment afternoon on Thursday when local author Tim Foley came to give an amazing talk about Irish explorer and hero Tom Crean. The children were spellbound by Tim's talk, backed up with a lovely powerpoint and lots of fascinating and often funny stories about Tom's life. It brought a very personal touch to our Explorers topic in Humanities.

If anyone would like to purchase Tim's book "Tom the Mighty Explorer", suitable for children aged 6-12, it is available online from Waterstones and Amazon, and there is also an audiobook  on Audible. 

Ms Harrison, Mrs May and six of our Reading Ambassadors

-Jeslyn, Penny, Izzy, Matthew, Isabelle and Aoife, had a lovely time at the Presentation Evening for the Stockport Children's Book Awards on Tuesday 25th June. It was fantastic to see Dorsa called onto the stage to receive her medal and certificate for being the St Winifred's Reader of the Year, and it was so exciting to find out which book won each of the three categories that we voted in!

Thank you to Dorsa's parents for sharing your photos with us. 

Stockport Children's Book Awards

Please follow this link for more information about the awards: 

Artwork Competition!

Stockport Libraries are looking for artwork inspired by this year’s Book Awards shortlisted titles. The artwork can be anything that represents a book read from the shortlist – a scene from the story, how it made you feel…let your imagination free!

1st Prize – Win your height in books!
2nd Prize – £150 of books
3rd Prize – £100 of books
Runners up – a piece of artwork representing each of the nominated books
will be selected to be framed and presented to the authors and the artist.
All winners and runners up will win tickets to the Book Awards Presentation Evening at Stockport Town Hall Ballroom on Tuesday, 25th June 2024.

There are no restrictions on size or materials used, but pieces should lend themselves to being scanned and printed for display purposes.

There are two ways to enter - either through school, or you can enter independently by submitting your work in person at any Stockport Library, or emailing a high quality photograph or scan of the artwork to childrensbookaward@stockport.gov.uk.
Please include the child(ren)’s name, age, which school they attend and which book the artwork represents.

The deadline for independent entries is Friday May 26th 2024, but if you are entering through school, please let your class teacher have your entry by Wednesday 24th May.

Winners will be notified via school or via parent contact details if submitted independently from schools.

Are you wondering what to read next?

If so, why not check out the Words for Life website, run by the National Literacy Trust. It has "Ten must-reads" for different age groups so you can check them off and see if you can read them all!

Must-reads for 5 to 7 year olds

Must-reads for 7 to 11 year-olds

There are lists for younger and old age groups, and lots of fun activities and ideas to explore.

Blue Peter Book Badge and Book Club

Did you know there is a Blue Peter Book Badge, launched in September this year, which celebrates reading for pleasure? It was designed by Sir Quentin Blake; and to earn the badge, children aged 5-15 just need to share their love of books by answering some simple questions either via online form or by post. 

Apart from the fun of getting the badge, badge owners can also gain free entry into over 200 Blue Peter Badge attractions around the country such as theme parks, zoos and castles!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/findoutmore/blue-peter-apply-for-a-book-badge

You can also visit the Blue Peter Book Club, which is all about sharing the joy of reading! Each month they talk about a different book  and find out your thoughts on it too, and there are also lots of fun activities, quizzes and cool challenges to try.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/joinin/blue-peter-book-club

If you are awarded the badge or join the Book Club, we'd love to hear about it in school! Please tell your class teacher.

Winter Mini Reading Challenge

The Reading Agency has launched a Winter Mini Reading Challenge, running from 1 December - 19 February.  If you sign up online or at a participating local library, and read 3 (or more!) books, you can earn badges, play games and explore book recommendations.  As with the Summer Reading Challenge, this is a challenge where you choose the books you want to read. You can find out more about it on https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/ (yes, I know that says summer!!)

Would you like to help win 150 books for school? If we create an amazing display all about the books we have read, we can enter the competition! Although the closing date for the reading challenge is 19th February, the competition entries must be submitted by 2nd February, so please bring any artwork you have created into school by Friday January 26th so we have time to make the display. You will get a small thank you prize, and your artwork will be displayed in school. Remember to put your name and class on the back.

Dear Families,

Please find attached an optional  ‘Reading Advent Calendar’ for you and your child to enjoy over the next few weeks. You can either choose to complete the first calendar or cut up the second one and select an activity each day to complete!