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Summer Holiday Reading! Charlotte Lamb (Literacy Specialist) - 22nd Jul 2024

Summer holidays are the perfect time to catch up on some reading. It can be tricky for teachers to find time to read in term time but the summer holiday provides that quieter time to catch up on recently released children's literature as well as just enjoying reading! It's so important for us to keep up to date with recently released texts so we can recommend them to children in our class, talk about them and more importantly ask our headteachers for copies of them for school! Exposing the children we teach to new an upcoming authors helps them to branch out from the comfort of those well known and popular texts and in turn has an impact on vocabulary, writing and motivation to read for pleasure.
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Raising Aspirations - Jodie Matthews (Strategic Lead) - 18th Jul 2024

Did you know that if you raise your expectations of what can be achieved then more is actually achieved. If you set your target really high the outcome will be higher than it would have been with a lower target. As humans we strive to meet goals and targets we set ourselves and are set by others and in doing this, while we may not achieve the very high target, we come closer than we ever thought possible. As we go into our 6th year of supporting schools I’ve been reflecting on what has been achieved.
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To band or not to band- that is the question! - Gill Wilcox (Literacy Specialist) - 1st Jul 2024

The June weather might have been underwhelming but I have got one seriously hot topic for July: To band or not to band- that is the question! Reading progression has been built on a foundation of colour banding for decades. Children, parents and teachers can measure success through a rainbow journey of fairly standard texts. How can we possibly deviate from the embedded procedure that has become cemented in reading provisions in every corner of the country?
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The Phonics SCREAMING Check! - Hayley Pyrah (Hub Lead) - 14th Jun 2024

This week, a little girl excitedly asked her teacher "When do I get to do my phonics screaming?" which of course was not only adorable and hilarious but it got me thinking- Phonics leads and Year 1 teachers all over the country have probably felt like phonics screaming over the past few weeks and then the week flies by in a flash! If you are feeling like that, don't worry. We spend the academic year building up to this week and then once it is complete there is a sense of relief because it is all absolutely fine and year on year the children beam as they skip away from their ten minutes of showing off their decoding skills... Often asking to do it again!
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Parental Engagement - Charlotte Lamb (Literacy Specialist) - 1st Jun 2024

Let’s get male role models in school! Schools always ask us how they can increase parental engagement? So with Father’s Day nearly upon us why not invite dads, grandads, stepdads or any male role model in and spend some time in class, reading. You could even provide coffee and biscuits.
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Representation Matters - Jodie Matthews (Strategic Lead) - 1st May 2024

I recently came across this wonderful quote said by Serena Patel, author of “Anisha The Accidental Detective” “Imagine loving stories, inhaling book after book, imagine books being such an important part of your life. Now imagine never seeing yourself in books, never seeing someone who looks like you or feels like you. Imagine never seeing someone like you as the hero of the story. Imagine never believing you can be a hero in your own story… I was never the hero of the story.
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Preparing for the PSC - Hayley Pyrah (Hub Lead) - 12th Apr 2024

The Easter holidays are over and there is one thing on lots of our minds, not ‘did I really eat 10 whole chocolate eggs in 2 weeks?’, more ‘how can we prepare our Year 1 pupils for the Phonics Screening Check?’. It is something we get asked a lot at Roade English Hub so I have compiled a list of my top tips to give your pupils the best success. Phonics at Every Chance you get! Continue with the high quality daily phonics, following your SSP then add an additional, shorter afternoon session to expose to sounds not yet taught and really focus on the gaps.
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Reading for Pleasure in Key Stage 2: A Culture - Erin King (Auditor) - 21st Mar 2024

Picture this: a primary teacher is presented with three wishes… would one of those wishes be for their class love reading and to choose to read? Absolutely. Along with endless glue sticks. And whiteboard pens.
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Starting a Blog - Jodie Matthews (Strategic Lead) - 11th Mar 2024

Recently I was invited to present at a Hub National Event on the Roade English Hubs marketing strategy, and I had the opportunity to work with Lucy, the Hub Lead at St Wilfreds English Hub. Lucy is a really inspirational Hub Lead and after looking at their blog and enjoying reading their updates I thought it would be great to do something similar. Our blog will be written by a member of the Hub team, not always by me, and will cover a range of topics and aim to answer questions that we often get asked. The Hub team consists of a team of Literacy Specialists with a range of teaching and leadership backgrounds, all with an extreme passion for reading and teaching children to read and love reading.
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