Kings Hill School Case Study

Posted on 19 March 2018

Kings Hill Primary School in Kent is one of the first institutions to complete the Scholastic Reading Audit, created by literacy experts to review schools’ current reading provision and then develop an action plan for moving forward. Fully matched to National Curriculum expectations, the audit helps teachers to evaluate their school’s reading performance across 12 types of reading – a simple ‘red, amber, green’ rating system highlights reading strengths and identifies areas for development. It also gives schools the opportunity to access Scholastic’s online research hub which links best practice and other information to support the teaching of reading.

“The Scholastic Reading Audit itself took less than 30 minutes to complete online,” said the School’s Assistant Head and Literacy Lead, Charlotte Genç, who joined Kings Hill in 2004. “When I first heard about the audit, it seemed like an ideal platform to find out where our gaps are and how they can be plugged. The feedback was good, but it highlighted an opportunity to focus on our free readers and how we can push them on. It’s an impressive tool and the follow-on report showed what we need to do next.”

Charlotte subsequently met with Scholastic to discuss the most effective approaches for supporting free readers. The school is now using Reading Pro, which assesses students’ reading ability and comprehension. It combines a reading assessment that computes students’ Lexile measures – a valuable piece of information about either an individual’s reading ability or the difficulty of a text – with a reading management programme that includes thousands of quizzes to assess independent reading.

“We have a well-stocked library, but the challenge has been knowing which books work best for certain pupils and what free readers require,” Charlotte said. “Key Stage 2 children needed particular support, in particular pushing greater depth and mastery in comprehension skills, and as part of Reading Pro we now know individual pupils’ Lexile measures and have a better range of books to support progress. The data allows us to pinpoint particular children, and with a better set of data we can make more informed decisions on how to improve – our strengths and weaknesses. It also helps us get parents involved, understanding what they can do to directly improve their child’s reading.”

Graded ‘Good’ during an Ofsted inspection in July 2017, Kings Hill has worked with Scholastic for many years on a range of support initiatives. Charlotte said: “Scholastic is a respected brand, we utilise their services regularly, and our librarian has a great relationship with the company in terms of stock and resourcing Book Fairs. We find their representatives to be very knowledgeable and good to work with. Whilst we have achieved a lot, there are always small things to improve, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with Scholastic as we seek to provide very best education for our children.”

Take the Scholastic Reading Audit here and click here to find out more about Scholastic Reading Pro.