Former Teachers Caroline Sence and Lucy Robinson explain how Readathon can help teachers to provide evidence of their school’s approach to reading for pleasure.

We know teachers are up to their eyeballs in new initiatives, so we always work hard to ensure that Readathon is not only easy to run, but that it helps you to meet some of the demands of the National Curriculum and Ofsted.

So we’ve taken a look at Ofsted’s ‘Deep Dives’ which launched in 2019 as a part of the new ‘Education Inspection Framework’. Both Twinkl’s ‘Deep Dive SEF’, designed to help schools prepare for Ofsted and The Key have some useful questions related to reading Deep Dives, 

We believe that running Readathon in your school helps to evidence your approach to reading for pleasure and to meet Ofsted’s requirements.

Here’s our guide to how Readathon can be a part of your answer to Ofsted’s Deep Dive into reading:

• How is reading promoted to pupils? Readathon encourages children to read whatever they enjoy; from comics to classics and audio books to blogs. It also helps pupils to see the positive benefits of reading, both for themselves and for others.

• What activities take place to encourage good reading habits at home and at school? Readathon can involve the whole school, parents and wider community, as reading takes place both at home and in school and most importantly involves pupils choosing for themselves what they want to read and when they want to read.

• How is reading shown to be valued and important? Readathon brings schools and whole communities together and promotes the myriad benefits of reading, whilst raising money for schools and hospitals. Through watching the Read for Good DVD which shows how taking part in Readathon helps to provide books for children in hospital, pupils develop an understanding of the wider benefits of reading for those children and their families.

• Do pupils see staff reading for pleasure? Lots of teachers model reading during Readathon and many schools also hold a Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) during their  Readathon – so BAM! pupils see staff reading for pleasure!

• Are the children encouraged to read for pleasure? Yes, through Readathon pupils choose to read what they love and are motivated to read because of Readathon’s unique model which encourages pupils to raise sponsorship through reading, in order to provide books for children in hospital.
• Is a reading culture embedded in your pupils? How do you know? Yes! Through Readathon! (which is especially true for the many schools which run Readathon annually). By involving parents,and the wider staff community over several weeks, Readathon helps a school to make a statement about its reading culture and helps to establish sustainable reading habits.

• Is reading well-resourced? Resources provided when a school runs Readathon include inspiring posters and bookmarks with motivational messages about reading, and which promote a love of reading, as well as entertaining filmed messages by popular children’s authors to engage pupils in reading. There are many more resources available on the Read for Good website. Plus, when a school runs Readathon, it receives free books for the school library! 

• Questions around ‘pupil voice’, including attitudes to/opinions on reading and active involvement in choosing what they read. When pupils take part in Readathon they are encouraged to choose from a wide variety of reading materials and chose whatever they want to read. Research by the National Literacy Trust (2017) shows that pupils taking part in Readathon have improved attitudes to reading, read more often and more widely and enjoy reading more as a result.

So why not choose to run Readathon this term and add to your evidence base for a positive Ofsted Deep Dive into Reading!