Summary
In this article you can find out:
- How some UK schools have benefited from government funding to support long-term academic and structural improvement
- How reading attainment has been improved in some of the most educationally disadvantaged areas of the UK
- How schools can work with Hackney Education to drive attainment in reading
- How we have achieved success in schools in the past and how we can work together to improve schools in your area
About our work
Education in Hackney has transformed over the past 20 years. Hackney schools went from being some of the least high performing to some of the highest performing in the UK.
These achievements weren’t by chance. Today, we are consistently in the top 5% of Local Authorities in the UK for educational performance. Recent (2022) DfE data shows that Hackney is in the top 5 performing local authorities for closing the attainment gap between those on free school meals and those who are not.
Hackney Education, part of Hackney Council, has a dynamic and experienced reading team that has not only worked tirelessly to raise reading attainment in Hackney e.g. ranked joint second in the UK for the percentage of pupils achieving the expected standard in reading at Key Stage 1, but is also working with other local authority areas across the UK to embed structured and responsive approaches within local school communities to transform reading outcomes.
Hackney Education has a number of dynamic approaches to underpin the leadership and teaching reading across Key Stage 1 and 2 which have been rolled out in over 400 schools across the UK. These include Daily Supported Reading, a structured and tailored daily reading programme for Reception and Year 1 students and Destination Reader, a dynamic pedagogical approach to teaching reading across Key Stage 2. We also offer bespoke reading moderation support for local authorities and groups of schools which enable leaders of reading to benchmark their assessments and provide informed judgements to the progress of all children in their reading.
Examples of our impact
East Sussex and Suffolk - Strategic School Improvement Fund
In 2018, Hackney Education was successful in being awarded a grant from the £140 million Strategic School Improvement Fund (SSIF), designed to help build a school-led improvement system across the UK.
Over two years, Hackney worked with 21 schools and over 7,000 pupils across East Sussex, Suffolk and London, all of whom had low attainment in reading, to roll out our Daily Supported Reading and Destination Reader programmes.
The areas had been selected due to their poor reading results. For example, more than half (54%) of disadvantaged pupils were leaving primary school in Hastings with a reading level below the expected standard. The issues with reading are explained in more detail in the opportunity area programme report (page 27).
Hackney is proud of its strong relationships with local schools with whom we work in partnership with to deliver joined up school improvement support to schools in other areas. For this project, we worked alongside our partner schools, Queensbridge Primary School, Alexandra Primary School and All Saints Junior Academy.
Our reading programmes were rolled out and implemented during 2018, helping students to develop robust thinking and comprehension skills, whilst fostering a love of reading.
The impact report for the Hastings Opportunity Area highlights the Destination Reader and Daily Supported reading programmes on page 7 and cumulative impact on reading results of all their interventions.
The project was also evaluated by the Open University which found that:
“the programmes have a great deal to offer in supporting children’s reading, including their reading stamina and enjoyment of reading”.
Portsmouth - strategic reading support
In September 2020, staff from Hackney then moved west to Portsmouth to support the local authority in the raising of attainment in reading. Standards in KS1 and KS2 in reading were below national average and were poor to statistical neighbours.
Portsmouth had benefited from the Opportunity Area twinning scheme and had been paired with Hastings as an area to share best practice with. Hackney Education’s Daily Supported Reading and Destination Reader programmes were rolled out initially to ten schools across the city and then to a further ten as part of the programme.
All lead teachers and members of each school’s senior leadership team completed the Daily Supported Reading and Destination Reader training and project schools cascaded this to all relevant staff. In each project school, the Senior Leadership Team member monitored teaching and learning in Daily Supported Reading and Destination Reader, alongside visiting other schools to observe implementation with pupils.
To ensure the programmes were embedded, secure and that best practice was built upon, a Best Practice Network was established with the local Head of School Improvement supported by a reading Lead Practitioner. The Lead Practitioner is now the official programme lead for Hackney so our links have been maintained and strengthened.
Work has continued in Portsmouth with additional Educational Improvement Zone funding being used for supplementary reading support.
Pupil surveys from the initial project highlighted the following impact (page 42):
- there was a 20% improvement in the proportion of pupils reporting that they loved reading from 57% to 37%
- there was a 20% increase in the number of pupils reporting that ‘they think they are good readers’
- there was a 12% increase in the number of pupils reporting that they read at home every day
Stoke - reading moderation support
Later in 2020, the Hackney reading team moved to Stoke to work closely with the local authority School Improvement team to design, implement and deliver a bespoke package of reading moderation support for schools across the county.
The project involved bespoke work with schools around reading moderation as well as cross county strategic reading moderation support. Every school had access to 2 part reading moderation training which was then continued by partnering with a local MAT to continue reading support. The focus was increased teacher subject knowledge, improved assessment of reading and clearer expectations of reading standards. More details can be found in the project report (page 7).
Stoke, a DfE Opportunity Area, was ranked the lowest of all local authorities for pupils achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics; just 46% of all students in comparison to a national average of 54%. In 2016, pupils failed to keep pace with their peers nationally. Averages of children achieving at least the expected level were particularly poor in communication and language, which includes assessments of listening and attention, understanding and speaking.
Hackney worked closely with teaching leaders in Stoke to train school staff in leading reading assessments and improving teacher confidence in generating judgements that are secure and accurate. We provided a framework for local staff to assess reading and understanding through listening to children read, including discussion and feedback on age appropriate texts. An assessment task was designed to provide teachers from Y1 to Y6 with a common task so that they can share their understanding of reading attainment and progress.
DfE opportunity areas
- West Somerset
- Norwich
- Blackpool
- North Yorkshire coast
- Derby
- Oldham
- Bradford
- Doncaster
- Fenland and East Cambridgeshire
- Hastings
- Ipswich
- Stoke-on-Trent
Read more about the opportunity areas