Literacy

Welcome to Literacy at Baines
As a school, we are incredibly lucky to have the ILC (Independent Learning Centre) available to our students both for library lessons within the curriculum, as a resource for staff wanting to undertake research tasks with students and as a base for homework and research before school, at break time and after school. During lunch time we offer a rolling programme of various clubs and study sessions to support and enhance extra-curricular learning.
At Baines we operate the New Group Reading Test with our students in years 7 to 9 to monitor their reading during the year. The staff use this information to help support students who may have an area of need.

In 2024 we became a Sparx Reader school. Every child in year 7 and 8 has weekly homework to do at least 30 minutes of careful reading every week. The books for Sparx Reader are mainly fiction books and are pitched at the right level for the student to enhance their development. One of the best things about Sparx Reader is the ability to check and improve vocabulary and to develop comprehension skills. If you are experiencing any issues with Sparx then please email Mrs Streetly (kst@baines.lancs.sch.uk).

To support both a love of reading and to help with the development of reading skills we are working with a charity called Coram Beanstalk who have trained a group of our year 9 students to be Reading Leaders. These students work with some of our year 7 students to support them in their reading – this helps both the leadership skills of our year 9 students but also enables our youngest students to feel supported.
To enhance the scope of our library we also have AccessIt – a system which introduces students to our reading lists (also available to see here on the website) to guide their reading; it also gives access to their own reading list which they can build as well as the opportunity to use a ‘click and collect’ library book service. We also encourage students to request any stock they may like to enhance our collections – recently there has been a big demand for students asking for Graphic Novels. If, as a parent, you are concerned about the efficacy of graphic novels then please check out this blog post (https://www.beanstalkcharity.org.uk/blog/graphic-novels-blog-parrot-street).

Alongside curriculum we have a drive to encourage a love of reading and a passion for books. The librarian, Mrs Simmons, runs competitions and events to tie in with notable national and international events such as World Book Day, Harry Potter Day and Mental Health Awareness Week, amongst many others. Mrs Simmons also ensures that our stock is kept fresh and relevant, we have seen a real interest in recent months for books popularised by film and TV streaming services. In 2024 some of our students met Frank Cottrell Boyce at Blackpool Tower to learn about his novel based in Blackpool called The Wonder Brothers and we welcomed Tom Palmer to speak to students via an online link to speak about his texts associated with war to support understanding of Holocaust Memorial Day.