Teach-Reading-and-Writing-Issue-21

level of frustration with the Year 7 curriculum. After moving on to high school, my pupils would consistently report back that they were doing nouns and verbs, writing diary entries using because , if and when , and reading books they’d previously studied in Year 2. However, a chance meeting with a head of English and his team at a local high school showed me that they were just as frustrated with the reading ages on arrival of Year 7 pupils who had passed their KS2 reading tests. Primary and secondary staff tend to have preconceived views of what the other does and doesn’t do – this is surely partially fuelled by forced transition projects. After several years of working closely with KS3 and KS4 colleagues, I feel ready to talk about what transition from KS2 to KS3 can really look like. In September 2015, Ofsted produced a report – Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? – which claimed the performance of W hen I was a trainee, my tutors told me that the best thing about becoming a teacher was the ability to read stories to my class. Apparently, the pupils’ minds would be a blank canvas, and as I read aloud my words would paint the most vibrant and beautiful paintings for them to visualise… I honestly don’t think that ever happened – certainly not with a whole class. Instead, like you, when I read to my class and asked a question like “So what did you think of the ending?”, I was often met with blank faces. So, was it just the pupils I taught who didn’t imagine vivid images as I read – or was this a burning issue across education settings? I began to dig around and found myself discussing the topic with, dare I say it, secondary school English teachers. A seamless transition? Having many years of teaching Year 6 under my belt, I had built up a certain secondary schools had stalled and that the transition from primary to secondary schools was poorly handled. One of the areas closely considered was progress in reading. This was the main driver for my chance meeting with the head of English at the local high school. He wanted to know what was going so wrong, and how primary and secondary could make this transition in reading more fluid. Are you really READING? Maddy Barnes introduces an innovative scheme that has transformed literacy outcomes for disadvantaged children “It became obvious that the main issue was the assessment of reading” 40 | www.teachwire.net