Spreydon School Christchurch, an accredited SharpReading School

Students at Spreydon School are confident readers who show finely-tuned comprehension skills and their teachers are convinced this is because of the SharpReading approach. 

Spreydon School recognised the need to have a more consistent teaching practice for guided reading lessons and commenced their SharpReading journey in 2014. It began with training sessions and over time every team member was proficient in the SharpReading programme.

At first, according to Janine Greer (Spreydon Junior School’s SharpReading trainer) some teachers did question the need for the programme because they had already been doing a great job. But their efforts were in isolation, meaning there was little consistency across the school and the decision was made to expand the programme school wide, offering a non-negotiable and coherent approach to reading.

Janine explained: “We implemented SharpReading with a whole school approach. Our management team was right behind us, supporting us through the training and we had in-class modelling from Hilton Ayrey and Brian Parker (from SharpReading team) who ensured the delivery of the programme was pure.

“We all speak the same language and by the end of 2017 we met the criteria to become a SharpReading accredited school with two accredited trainers (Andrea Barr senior school SharpReading trainer and I were chosen to do this) to support teachers and maintain the programme’s standards.”

Furthermore, the consequence of successfully implementing the SharpReading programme has not just been about producing confident readers. Students are also more engaged in the whole learning experience, parents more involved and teachers couldn’t be prouder…

Janine admitted: “We are proud of the reading levels of the children in our school, we are proud that our reading programme is so transparent that our children happily talk about SharpReading, what they are working on and their next steps. The teaching team know where all the students sit on the SharpReading developmental progression, they know what they have covered and where they should go next.”

Spreydon School is committed to the SharpReading programme and its future is assured because it meets students’ needs to be “confident readers who read for purpose and passion”.