At times like these, when events occur that have an impact across the nation and wider world, books can be a source of great comfort. Last Friday morning, on arrival at school, I ordered a range of biographies of Queen Elizabeth II to add to our library collections. It is important that children at Edge Grove will be able to read, for years to come, details of such a long life of service and dedication. No doubt children will come to understand what a remarkable life Her Majesty led, and what an inspiring legacy she leaves behind.
In the Pre Prep I am introducing a new reading scheme called Floppy’s Phonics. This reading scheme is rigorous and has been selected for Edge Grove because it has been written by Oxford Reading Tree and published by Oxford University Press, whose resources have stood the test of time. Expert Debbie Hepplewhite, with whom we have had personal contact, (and who won a MBE for services to early education in 2012), was consultant in the development of the scheme.
The Government dictates that, whilst children are learning phonics, reading books must now be decodable. This means that the sounds children learn in school, then appear in reading books in a systematic way. In the books that children, in time, will bring home to read, they will encounter the sounds that they have been learning at school.
Children are currently having their start of term tests and we need time to prepare our new resources. Myself and Miss Kyriacou will be holding a meeting later this half term, once the children have settled into the new routines of this academic year, to give some guidance on how parents can best support reading at home.
The Pre Prep library underwent renewal this summer holiday with new books added and the old removed. Additionally, a number of new books have been bought for confident readers in Year 2. I will talk more about these at our forthcoming evening, the date of which will be shared in due course.
This summer myself, Miss Harding and Miss Leighton, dedicated time to improve the Apthorp libraries by removing all older stock and ensuring they supported our approach to reading. The fiction library is now fully lexiled; this means that every book has been assessed and labelled according to its complexity. The lexile measure of a book considers sentence length and the level of challenge posed by the vocabulary used (pictures, font size, number of pages do not effect the lexile of a book, so some books can look more straightforward but can be deceptively challenging).
All children in Year 3 and Year 4 have taken a lexile test which assesses a child’s level of comprehension. Reading books are now coming home which should offer an appropriate level of challenge. We would ask that parents read with children for twenty minutes a day so that expected progress can be made during the academic year.
The Apthorp non-fiction library has been organised by topic and children can easily access the books that most interest them. A number of new books have been added which have been purchased from book sale fundraising. Some of the sections are shown here:
I will be holding a parent meeting in due course to share more information about our approach to reading in the Lower Prep. Please keep an eye on the Information Letter for more details.
Miss Leighton spearheaded a hugely time consuming renewal of the main library this summer where all older books were removed and every book was labelled according to its genre - and where possible - its lexile (not all books have had a lexile calculated). A number of new non-fiction books were added with funds raised from the last book sale. Children are taking lexile tests this week which will help them choose books which offer an appropriate level of challenge. This is considered to be up to 100 points below a child’s lexile and up to 50 points above. Outside of this range, a book is likely to be too easy or too difficult.
All children in Years 5 to 8 have been given a new book bag in which to keep school library books clean and safe. We have implemented a policy where a charge will be made for damaged and lost books: £15 for fiction and £20 for non-fiction. The charge reflects not only the cost of a replacement book, but also the administration involved in preparing a new book for borrowing with a barcode, protective cover, loans sheet, lexile, genre and author stickers.
Older books from across the school have been donated to The Arts and Media School in Islington where a library was being opened for the first time and Chapter Two Community Bookshop in Chesham where sales support the work of St. Francis Hospice in Berkhamsted. Multiple donations from Edge Grove have been met with great appreciation.
Donations of books from Edge Grove families are always welcome and can be left in the foyer of the main house. I process these, choosing some titles for our school libraries, putting others aside for fundraising, whilst passing the remainder to the charities that we support.
Thank you for your ongoing support. If there are topics which you would like to see featured in Reading Matters this year, please email jbroadis@edgegrove.com
