Outwood Academy City Fields is based in the cathedral city of Wakefield, and we are proud to be rated Good by Ofsted.
We are a welcoming and supportive academy, relentlessly determined to provide the best education for every child. We place our students at the centre of everything we do, focusing on creating a supportive culture of success and a positive climate for learning.
“Students like myON because it offers a broader range of short and sharper reads tailored to each student’s interests and reading history.”
The success of myON at Outwood Academy City Fields is due to its ease of use and ability to provide a variety of reading materials tailored to each student’s interests and reading history. myON offers digital reading materials that can be accessed 24/7, making reading convenient for students. In addition, Outwood Academy City Fields offers a flexible approach to reading where students can access reading materials via hard copy texts or digitally on bigger screens with tablets or computers, increasing the overall access to reading for every student. The accessibility of myON has led to an increase in the number of students coming into the library voluntarily after school or during lunchtime to use myON or to have the myON ‘read aloud’ feature playing while they do their school or homework.
The myON programme has also been a valuable resource in encouraging reading across all subjects, from PE to Geography. Teachers have been using myON projects to assign books to students for further reading about climate change and other topics, providing a cross-curricular approach to reading development. In addition, the programme’s user-friendly interface saves the school time by negating overcomplicated search functionality, making it easy for students to find individual texts and features.
“The PE department has assigned multiple non-fiction texts in myON focusing on the human body and organs, which students can access to support the PE curriculum.”
One of the most exciting features of myON is myON News, which provides daily articles and video summaries for students to engage with. The article-specific questions ensure the student has a base-level understanding of the article. In addition, the video summaries provide a nice break between reading for students, keeping them focused and motivated to stay engaged with their reading.
Outwood Academy City Fields’ success with myON has led to implementing of reading competitions. Students can read hard-copy texts or myON books and instantly take an AR book quiz directly from myON. Students who get more than 80% on their AR book quiz win a raffle ticket, with the chance to win a tablet labelled a ‘myON station’ to continue to engage with reading 24/7.
“With myON News, we allow students to read daily articles whenever they wish, but they must answer the article-specific questions.”
The success of myON at Outwood Academy City Fields is a model for other secondary schools in England to follow. The programme’s ability to provide a variety of reading materials tailored to each student’s interests and to read history, its ease of use, and its ability to offer cross-curricular resources make it an excellent resource for improving reading engagement. By integrating myON into their reading development strategy, schools can provide students with the tools they need to become confident and enthusiastic readers, leading to better academic outcomes and a lifelong love of reading.
Click here to find out how your school can utilise myON to support your school’s literacy development strategy.