At Old Mill Primary School, our reading curriculum has been carefully designed in line with the National Curriculum and the recommendations from The Reading Framework to ensure all pupils develop the skills, confidence, and love of reading necessary for lifelong learning. Our approach not only prioritises phonics and comprehension but also explicitly models what makes a skilled reader, including fluency, prosody, and critical thinking. We have enriched our curriculum with a diverse collection of authors and stories, ensuring pupils engage with texts that reflect a wide range of cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. Through high-quality class texts, reading lessons, and structured interventions, we provide systematic, well-sequenced opportunities for pupils to develop their reading proficiency. By fostering curiosity and enjoyment in reading, we aim to create confident, independent readers who can access a broad and ambitious curriculum, ensuring pupils read for pleasure and read for purpose.
At Old Mill Primary School, we believe reading is fundamental to lifelong success. It shapes academic, social, and emotional development, making it our duty to ensure all children become fluent, skilled, and engaged readers.
Our reading curriculum allows time for children to explore, discuss and compare books, which ultimately leads to an appreciation and love of reading that will be sustained throughout their lives.
Our curriculum fosters a love for reading by exposing pupils to high-quality literature that explores diverse perspectives, rich language, and complex themes. As pupils explore new texts, our focus is demonstrating metacognition, creating an effective mental model so children recognise how to read as a skilled reader. Through reading, and teaching how to build mental models, pupils’ understanding of the world continuously expands.
We prioritise both reading for pleasure and purpose, offering a broad range of texts, genres, and authors to enhance cultural awareness and inclusivity across the curriculum. Comprehension is taught early to prevent future difficulties, while reading is embedded across the curriculum to inspire and support learning.
Key Aims:
By nurturing a reading culture, we empower pupils to become confident, thoughtful, and lifelong readers. Accelerated Reader, Reading Ambassadors, displays, and ‘Reading Assemblies’ further support reading for pleasure and how Old Mill Primary School prioritises reading.
Our reading curriculum is implemented in three ways: themed lesson, reading comprehension lesson, and book club.
Themed Lessons
Our themed lessons ensure our pupils are exposed to a variety of texts: a diverse, inclusive collection of stories, books and authors. These lessons help raise pupils’ reading for pleasure. The approach to themed lessons focuses on creating an effective mental model in the reader’s mind, modelled by the teacher, and retrieval and inference skills.
Comprehension Lessons
Teachers read their class novel four times a week. A short extract is taken from the class novel as the basis for a reading lesson focusing on comprehension (content domains).
Book Clubs
Once a week, pupils will participate in a ‘book club’ to celebrate, share and recommend different books, stories and authors.
Reading leaflet for parents/carers
Vulnerable pupils are supported in reading lessons through a range of strategies and adaptations tailored to their needs. Scaffolded sheets provide structured guidance to help them engage with the text, while targeted questioning ensures they can participate and demonstrate understanding. Key parts of the text may be highlighted to draw attention to important information, aiding comprehension. Where possible, pre-teaching introduces new vocabulary and concepts in advance, helping to build confidence. Post-teaching reinforces learning by revisiting challenging areas, ensuring pupils have the opportunity to consolidate their understanding.
For pupils significantly below their age-related expectations, especially those in key stage 2 who are still learning to decode, reading interventions are put in place to support
Pupils become confident readers who are able to read for both pleasure and purpose, articulating their thoughts on texts and applying reading strategies independently. Pupils’ comprehension skills are well-developed, allowing them to interpret texts insightfully and engage in critical discussions.
A positive reading culture is evident across the school, with pupils actively participating in book clubs, reading challenges, and reading for pleasure. The reading programme effectively supports all pupils, including disadvantaged and SEND pupils, helping to close attainment gaps and foster an inclusive learning environment.
Pupils demonstrate strong reading attainment, with a high percentage reaching or exceeding expected standards. Assessment data shows that the vast majority of pupils, including disadvantaged and SEND pupils, make exceptional progress, exceeding national expectations. Performance data from national assessments, such as SATs, reflects outstanding reading achievement, with pupils consistently surpassing national benchmarks and establishing a solid foundation for future learning. Learning walks and feedback highlight high levels of engagement, with pupils demonstrating enthusiasm and enjoyment in reading activities.
Surveys indicate that many pupils read frequently at home and in school, reinforcing a strong reading culture beyond the classroom. They express preferences for different genres and authors, showing an appreciation for diverse literature. Parents also provide positive feedback on their children’s reading progress and engagement at home, affirming the success of home-school reading initiatives.
Star Reader, part of Accelerated Reader, is used every half term to assess pupils’ progress. This assessment provides a reading age and a ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). The ZPD defines the readability range within which pupils should read to best develop their reading, while avoiding frustration. Teachers use the assessment (including ZPD) to assign pupils an appropriate ‘reading band’.
Pupils have access to Accelerated Reader at school and at home. After reading a book, pupils complete a ‘AR Quiz’ to assess their understanding of the text they have read. Teachers monitor the outcomes of these assessments to identify when a child may need to be re-assessed, assigned a different reading band, or if intervention is required.
During themed reading lessons, AfL (Assessment of Learning) is key for teachers to successfully identify those pupils working towards, working at, or working above the expected standard. Questioning is used to ensure pupils’
Years 2 to 5: At the end of every term, pupils complete NTS reading assessments. NTS (National Test-Style Standardised) Assessments are designed to predict performance and familiarise pupils with National Tests whilst measuring progress and attainment against national averages.
Year 6: Each term, Year 6 pupils complete a previous SATs Reading test.
A combination of the above (Star Reading assessment, AR quizzes, themed and comprehension lessons, and NTS assessments) allow teachers to make an accurate teacher assessment at the end of every term. Pupils are assessed as WTS (working towards age-related expectations), EXS (working at age-related expectations) or GDS (greater depth – working above age-related expectations).
Old Mill Primary School
Station Road
Broughton Astley
Leicestershire
LE9 6PT
Old Mill Primary School
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