At Fred Longworth High School, we are committed to ensuring children are equipped with the strategies they need to understand any text they encounter. From integrating challenging reading into our curriculum, to offering reading intervention to individuals, language is at the centre of all that we do. We also recognise the importance of reading at home to secure these essential skills, and are committed to working closely with parents to ensure every child succeeds.

The library is an inviting space that is open daily for students and contains a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts, graphic novels, magazines, reference books and study guides. Reading for pleasure at break and lunchtime in the library is strongly encouraged and the library manager, Mrs Hibbert, is always available at these times to discuss books with students and suggest authors they may otherwise be unfamiliar with. Students are also encouraged to become student librarians who work alongside Mrs Hibbert to help keep the library running smoothly and promote reading for pleasure throughout the school.

Students can borrow books to read at home for a period of two weeks and can renew these items if they wish. The book stock is permanently under review to ensure that students can access newly published, high quality texts that will develop their reading skills and challenge their existing thinking. They are also able to remotely access the library catalogue, search the existing library database and place reservation requests for books they are interested in through AccessIt, our online library database. This valuable resource can also be used by students to help them discover new books and authors, and engage with other students who read regularly for pleasure.

All Year 7 and 8 students have a dedicated reading lesson in the library once a fortnight in order to complete Reading Plus, receive support with their reading and harness their enjoyment of books. The FLHS English department use Reading Plus software to offer bespoke intervention and support to children, irrelevant of reading ability or age. The software is designed to give children exposure to a range of short texts, both whilst elevating their reading age, reading speed and comprehension. The program is integrated in our homework provision and has been proven to significantly accelerate students’ reading ability across an academic year when it is consistently engaged with. We ask that parents of children in Years 7 and 8 engage with this software, discussing the progress made with your child to encourage a culture of independent reading at home. Timetabling lessons in this way ensures all students can spend time in the library and allows strong working relationships to be developed. Information about the program for parents and carers can be found here.

In addition, the library hosts many activities and events throughout the school year and there are regular themed displays intended to help students identify books for key topics and subjects of interest.