Reading at St George

We have exciting plans for a new Library and Resource Centre, with work due to start in 2025. This centre will hold 3,000 and give pupils access to more computers and a quiet study area.

In the meantime, students can borrow books from the English department. Every pupil has a library account, which they can use to borrow physical books from the library space in Miss Templeman’s classroom. Miss Templeman has over 1300 fiction and non-fiction books in L7 for pupils to borrow. She also opens her classroom at break and lunch, so pupils have a space to read and study quietly.

Everyone also has a login to the free online library app: SORA, where you have access to thousands of different fiction and non-fiction books, magazines, comics, audiobooks and revision guides.

You can download the SORA app from your usual Google or Apple app stores, or access the SORA website here. Instructions to help to download the SORA app onto your phone or tablet can be found here.

Tutor-time activities

During one of your tutoring times each week, you will be introduced to the latest Word of the Week. The purpose of this is to help you become more confident using a variety of ambitious vocabulary in your writing and conversation, across all subjects. You will write the word, along with its definition, into your planner, to remind you to use it in all of your subjects throughout the week. There will also be conversation starters which will encourage you, as a tutor group, to use the word out loud. Using the Word of the Week in your lessons and during tutor will be rewarded with house points.

There will also be a recommended Book of the Week. These books are recommended by students and teachers. These books are always available to borrow from the library space in L7 or via the SORA app.

Also, during tutor time, years 7-9 will read a book together. This book is chosen by your tutor and will be read to you each week. For years 10-11 you will receive a booklet each half term with extracts and articles to read and then answer questions about. These booklets will coincide with what you are learning about in your English lessons and will help with both revision and reading skills.

At the end of each week, Miss Templeman will select and reward her Literacy Stars of the Week. These are pupils who have got involved with tutor time literacy activities and actively used the Word of the Week in their lessons and around school.

There is also an annual trip - to the Harry Potter Studios Tour - for our literacy superstars in years 7-9.

Student support

Throughout the year, pupils will complete a STAR Reader Test. This test identifies your reading age along with your strengths and weaker skills in relation to reading.

From these tests we identify that some students, who have a reading age lower than their chronological age, may benefit from some form of literacy intervention. Students attend one lesson per week of small group literacy intervention with a member of the English department or our designated Core Literacy Skills Facilitator. These small group sessions focus on your reading, writing, oracy, comprehension and vocabulary. We may also offer phonics and functional skills work. To do this, you will be taken out of one of your timetabled lessons, or tutor time, (avoiding core subjects) for one lesson per week, for the following term. After this term, we will then determine how much progress you have made, and whether you would benefit from further intervention in the following term.

We also have an EAL specialist for those who have English as a second language and need more specialist support.