Our vision: We want reading to be back on the radar of every child’s leisure pursuits – so they want to read rather than feel that they have to read
Our newly refurbished Library is at the centre of our school and has undergone a major redevelopment, modernisation and updating to become an enticing and welcoming centre for reading. At Cansfield, we understand how vital reading is to our students’ education. A wide vocabulary, good comprehension and a firm understanding of spelling grammar helps students achieve in every subject across the curriculum. It is because of this that our Library has been designed to suit all of our students’ reading choices. We have over 10,000 books which are ordered into the many different types that are available, from adventure to crime to comedy, and we also have an excellent up to date, well selected non-fiction section decided by the faculties to help students with their study and research. Students are always encouraged to suggest books for us to buy that they will enjoy reading. They are also invited to apply for student librarianship to work with the Librarian.
Various activities linked to the pleasure of reading are hosted in the Library on a weekly basis and the whole school participates in World book Day. We also have regular visits from those at First Steps Nursery which are hosted by our students to promote literacy at the earliest of ages; students select books from our pre-school section to read to our youngest of visitors!
We run the Accelerated Reading programme. We have badges which are awarded when students hit milestones with their AR quizzes and prizes for our top readers at the end of the school year. All year groups participate in this – hence the very wide selection of books – and all our students will be reading as part of the curriculum at least three times a week. As a consequence of this, students are required to have a reading book as part of their personal equipment.
As reading is so important to us, as a school, we encourage the students to use it before school, break-times, lunchtimes as well as after school. We have access to the internet, via PCs, so students can complete Accelerated Reader quizzes and complete independent study.
