Reading and literacy are fundamental to all areas of learning and beyond. Reading for pleasure is so important to children’s cognitive development and is a more powerful factor in life achievement than socio-economic background. Our reading strategy aims to change student attitudes to reading, improve confidence in reading, develop literacy and communication skills and ensure our students can access all areas of the curriculum in order to thrive in society as confident young people.

The ACE reading programme is a targeted intervention that focuses on the development of literacy, vocabulary and most importantly the enjoyment of reading and promoting a reading culture among our students. Students have made outstanding progress in their reading ages with an average improvement of 2.5 years over the academic year. This has been achieved not only through intervention, but by engaging our students in reading and literacy across all curriculum areas.