Lache Primary School – Pathways to Read – Case Study

About the school: Lache Primary School, 60% pupil premium, high numbers of SEND in mainstream classes as well as Resources Prov.
Number of classes: 9 (Nursery-Y6 plus a resource provision)
Number on roll: 220

The Challenge

Previous results showed very low attainment in reading across school, it was also noted in our last Ofsted report that children’s vocabulary was at a very low level.
The mastery approach in Pathways to Read was adopted to give the children equal opportunities to succeed.
The whole class sessions are an amazing opportunity for children to learn new vocabulary and deepen their current understanding by introducing them to a range of synonyms that they may not usually hear through the relaxed nature of the whole class session.

Mastery Approach

Pupils have developed a much deeper love of reading following our introduction of Pathways to Read, mainly due to the fact that the texts are modern, exciting, and different. The planning enables children to really investigate text through reading and this has boosted children’s confidence hugely.

Before Pathways to Read, our reading lessons were stagnant. Pathways to Read has breathed new life into the teaching of reading at our school. Children’s vocab has been greatly enhanced through the whole class sessions and this is clear to hear during pupil voice interviews.

Now that we have been using the scheme for a few years we are seeing that more children are able to access reading at their age level. As well as being able to access the learning, children are also enjoying reading.

The Impact

Pathways to Read has had a positive impact on teachers for many reasons.

It has reduced workload and enabled them to enjoy the teaching of reading rather than dreading it.

Subject knowledge has been supported by the scheme and it has been very helpful for ECTs, enabling them to teach high quality reading lessons from the start. Staff members that have moved year groups have also found the scheme supportive with helping them understand the reading curriculum for their new year groups.

Our teaching assistants find the planning easy to follow for the group and reading sessions and enjoy the whole class reading sessions too.

What would you say to other schools considering Pathways to Read?

I would highly recommend Pathways to Read to any other school. It is easy to follow the planning and the prep before lessons is minimal. The cross curricular links are smooth, especially for schools that also use Pathways to Write. The reading texts are interesting, informative, and accessible for children of all backgrounds.

We have a lot of reluctant readers in out school for many different reasons, but Pathways to Read is helping us to encourage more and more children to pick up a book and love reading.