School Name: Packmoor Ormiston Academy
Teacher: Lindsay Davies, Enrichment Lead
“The Week Junior is an age-appropriate and engaging reading resource. The weekly topics featured in the magazine encourage all pupils to read for pleasure outside of class time. We work hard to seek exciting opportunities for both girls and boys to further develop a love of reading. The Week Junior helps to do just this.”
Our school
Packmoor Ormiston Academy is a mixed primary school in Stoke-on-Trent that has 500 pupils on roll.
Why did you choose The Week Junior?
At Packmoor Ormiston Academy, we are keen to give our pupils access to the best age-appropriate resources. We had heard The Week Junior shares news and events in an informative and engaging way, and so we decided to trial the magazine with our Year 6 pupils.
Additionally, we wanted to provide pupils with a resource we knew they would enjoy outside of class time. It’s important for us to show our pupils that they can read for pleasure about subjects and topics they are interested in.
How do you use The Week Junior?
The Week Junior is a flexible resource that we have been using in a number of ways.
- During class time — to boost pupils’ confidence and motivation in reading
- Sparking children’s interest in extra-curricular reading and learning
- Informing class discussions about real world issues that our pupils are interested in learning more about
The Week Junior team also invited us to participate in extracurricular activities, which are a fantastic boost to our curriculum-focused learning.
Our pupils are very excited to take part in an upcoming Big Debate workshop, where we will welcome The Week Junior and the English-Speaking Union to our school to lead a day of confidence-boosting debating and public speaking activities.
Have you seen any benefits from working with The Week Junior?
At Packmoor, our objective is to encourage our pupils to read more outside of the classroom. The Week Junior magazine has really helped us to promote reading for pleasure, as even our most reluctant readers have been enthralled by the bright, vibrant and engaging content in the magazine — which has been a wonderful surprise!
Another target for our teachers is to increase pupils’ reading speeds. The Week Junior has helped us move towards this goal by raising motivation when Reading for Meaning with pupils.