Guest post from Scream Street author Tommy Donbavand
14 April, 2016
On 10th March 2016, I was diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer, and my entire world turned upside down. For those of you who don’t know me – my name is Tommy Donbavand, and I’m the author of over 90 books for children and teenagers including the 13-title Scream Street series (now adapted for CBBC), Doctor Who: Shroud of Sorrow, Wolf, Uniform, Cyber Shock and dozens more books for reluctant and struggling readers of all ages. Most of them already quizzed for the Accelerated Reader scheme! I visit scores of schools, libraries and book festivals every year to teach creative writing and promote the love of reading for pleasure.
Reading Millionaires at Neston High School
3 February, 2016
Each student at Neston High School in year 7, 8 or 9 is enrolled onto the Accelerated Reader system. Students can log into this program in school or at home and log their reading progress and success. The librarian, Miss Pearson, along with the English department run this system in school to allow students to track their reading and stretch themselves academically. Amongst other data, the system counts how many words a students has read in each book they have read. The Reading millionaires have all read more than 1 million words since starting this academic year in September 2015.
Book Giveaway!
7 January, 2016
Last December we ran a 10 Days of Christmas Giveaway, where each weekday a school could win a pallet of 2,000 books and a mystery gift bag. We gave away a total of 28,000 books that we have quizzed over the past 16 years.
Guest post from Alison Rogers, responding to the Commission on Assessment without Levels' report
18 November, 2015
The Department for Education’s recently-published report following its Commission on Assessment without Levels places the emphasis on schools determining what type of assessment system will work for them. This should be seen as a good thing. The brave new world of teacher-designed assessment is an opportunity for classroom teachers to exercise their professionalism as we would expect them to, unencumbered by central diktat and control, using assessment processes that are tailored to the needs of their pupils.