Welcome to literacy and reading at Ladybridge High School! This page is dedicated to sharing all things reading and vocabulary. If you have any queries please email our Reading Lead at mwilliams@ladybridgehigh.co.uk
Reading is vitally important for developing empathy, critical thinking, exploring different ideas/cultures and significantly improving attainment in standardised testing. This is confirmed by many educational researchers who found learners who complete just 20 minutes of reading each day have approximately 1.8 million more words in their vocabulary each school year. This drops to 282,000 words if they are only reading for 5 minutes a day.
Library
The brand new library at Ladybridge is currently under construction. Our library has always been the heart of Ladybridge and is a safe space for many learners. This is why the school has invested in transforming this space into a place in school where lots of learners feel comfortable and at home.
“Due to the school’s expansion, building work starts in May 2025 of a new school building, which will include space for a large new library, Humanities and Art classrooms along with a careers base. The new library will be far more than a place for learners to take out books. The library will provide a brilliant location for independent and collaborative learning, giving our learners the opportunity to develop their agency and research skills when engaging in ‘Project Trivium’ learning. Learners will have the opportunity to work in study groups in the library, supporting one another with their learning. Importantly, it will also enhance our reading strategy, increasing the number of learners reading for pleasure.” Mr Russell
In the meantime we have a temporary library space called ‘The Nook’, with a selection of the newest book titles and books that learners themselves have requested.
To learn more about The Nook, please visit our Ladybridge Library page.
Testing
All of our learners are tested twice a year throughout KS3. We use NGRT tests to assess your child’s reading age against their chronological age. These assessments are used to test your child’s ability to comprehend text and are completed electronically.
Any learners who are identified as having a low reading age compared to their chronological age will be selected for our reading intervention programme. This is 1:1 intervention with our reading mentors to boost your child’s reading age.
Meet our Mentors
Miss Funnell and Mrs Baulcombe provide a 6-week intensive reading intervention programme with learners who need to boost their reading age. The 6-week intervention is delivered 1:1 for 30 minutes every day using the “switch on reading” programme.
“I’m Miss Funnell and this is my 24th year working at Ladybridge High School and my 2nd year as a Reading Mentor. What I love most about my role as a Reading Mentor is providing learners with the opportunity to feel like successful readers and seeing their confidence in their reading ability grow.
“I’m Mrs Baulcombe and I’ve been supporting learners with their reading at Ladybridge since September 2024. Daily interventions improve reading fluency to make confident readers. Literacy is so important to increase our learners’ opportunities in life and we strive to support them in every way possible. The best parts of being a mentor are the chats about books and seeing how proud learners are when they improve and make progress.”
Have a read to see what some of our learners think about the reading intervention!
“When I first started I hated reading out loud due to a lack of confidence, once I began the interventions my confidence increased as I was reading out loud every day and now I don’t mind reading.” DM (Year 10)
“Reading intervention was really good because it helped with my reading skills. I think I was good at reading anyway but I needed some more help with it. The intervention gave me a lot more confidence in my reading ability and I enjoyed the 1:1 nature of the sessions.” KS (Year 7)
Reading Challenges
We offer a number of monthly or termly reading challenges to promote reading for pleasure to our learners. Learners are encouraged to complete these challenges and submit book reviews (to mwilliams@ladybridgehigh.co.uk) linked to the books they decided to read for the challenge. The challenges are quite broad as we know the importance of learners reading books they are interested in, not books chosen by us.
Learners are introduced to the new challenge during Personal Development time and assemblies. The incentive to complete these challenges is a termly draw to win book vouchers/a book of their choice.
Book Club
Our Book Club takes place every Wednesday at lunchtime in C12. Learners get together and decide on a new book at the start of each half term, they take the book away and we read to the same point each week. During our weekly meeting we talk about what has happened, what we think will happen and what it is about this book we are enjoying. This is an excellent opportunity for like-minded learners to come together and share their love and passion for reading.
Book Fair and Book Sales
This year we have had a Scholastic travelling book fair at Ladybridge. This was a wonderful opportunity for our learners, their families and the families of neighbouring primary schools to come together and purchase some of the newest books at a great discount.
Our learners had access to the Book Fair each break time throughout the week and they were able to take home wish lists for parents to order the books if they could not make it into school.
During the school’s Christmas Market events we also hold a mystery book sale where learners can purchase an unknown book in their chosen genre. They can even purchase books for their younger siblings to give as a gift around the festive period.
World Book Day
Every year, activities are planned to celebrate World Book Day. We often partner up with our local primary schools for World Book Day and take some of our learners over to read to the children. Our learners have access to the World Book Day tokens to purchase a book and we encourage all staff and learners to take part in a number of activities. Take a look at some of the World Book Day activities we have done previously!
Recommended Reading
We have a selection of recommended reading books with a variety of reading ages, by both genre and subject. Please take a look at our recommended reads below!