The Refined Programme 2025

As the programme's design is finalised and rolled out over the year, this page will be updated. Please feel free to contact me directly about the programme with any questions (contact details at the bottom of this page).

The first 3 weeks of 2025 (rather disrupted due to public holidays and the usual start-up school events) were extremely similar to the introductory phase of in 2024, with a focus on the human significance of stories, and equipping students with the skills to identify and describe what kind of reader they are, along with key library skills; see the slideshow and examples of the learning activities on the 2024 page. 

The unit was titled "The Power of Stories", and the "Pitch to the Publisher" activity from the end of last year was incorporated into this introductory unit, as a multi-stranded initial assessment activity (exploring the students' written, verbal, and visual skills).

The most important 'Learning to Love Reading' features of this phase were the the activities that supported the establishment of the classroom learning & reading community through the "What kind of reader are you?" quiz and book buddy activity.

New to the programme this year was the “Genre Sampler” part of the intro unit, which replaced the 'Myths'/'Cultural Narratives' comprehension unit that previously this school had used. The Genre Sampler was developed by Teacher A in her new role as Head of Year 9 English, building on what worked in the first cycle of the study in 2024 and rolling it out for the entire cohort in 2025.

The extension class completed a similar unit with more challenging science fiction texts, such as the original 1895 version of The War of the Worlds by H G Wells.

In the meantime, I developed a booklet of reading recommendations listed by genre, exhaustively cross-checked to ensure the titles were available in the school library, either physically or digitally. (By Term 2 there were already issues with some titles having been lost or withdrawn due to poor condition, e.g. Minecraft: The Island, despite the launch of the Minecraft movie that saw a huge surge in interest.) This initially generated a great deal of interest, but after browsing through it a couple of times, most students ignored it afterwards. This was potentially due to the fact the book they wanted to try was not available – I witnessed this issue several times during my formal observations.

Example Resource: Reading Recommendations Booklet

Weekly-ish library lessons continued for the rest of the term as the classes moved into more academic learning units. 

Despite the intro unit, the teachers and I observed the following issues:

• Students still struggling to find books

• High turnover with many students swapping out for new random books every five or so minutes

• Students struggling to pay attention to their book due to distractions from others and the wider library environment

• Misbehaviour on their BYOD devices

• Students defaulting to books they've read many times before, especially easy reads like 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' (aimed at 8-12 year olds).

To start addressing this, we tried the following small changes over the final few weeks of Term 1:

• Establishing a minimum read time of 20 minutes (about half the reading session) before swapping a book;

  • Giving students incentive to be more thoughtful about their book choice (rather than just grabbing anything)

  • Reducing the distractions of students getting up and down and interrupting friends as they pass

  • Encouraging them to give a book a reasonable chance, rather than ditching it if it wasn't instantly amazing in the first 2 pages

  • They are still encouraged to change books if they aren't enjoying it at the end of the 20 minutes.

• I brought in the box of headphones for students to borrow with their own devices

  • • Still quite a few device issues, but this helped a handful of students in each class, further reducing distractions

    • There was no real 'push' for ebooks or audiobooks at this stage; however, I set up a list of links to online ebook/audiobooks on the class Teams book channel (more info below) that saw some interest, but unfortunately sometimes was disrupted with playback glitches

    • A fair few students had lost device privileges for the library due to misbehaviour.

• Occasionally, the teacher or a student volunteer would 'sell' or share a book they recommended at the start of the library period, but this only happened a couple of times.

At the end of the term, I gathered student voice through a class ‘focus group’/survey in the last week of term. The two most common topics in the feedback were:

• Physical environment was uncomfortable (partly due to the cramped conditions)

• Still struggling to find good books

Some other patterns included suggestion of reading obstacles ("the words wiggle and move", "I just can’t remember what I’ve read") as well as a self-perception of not being a reader (“I’m a sporty guy”).

It was clear we needed to revise book selection skills and address some of the barriers still standing between the students and reading, including:

• physical comfort

• cognitive load of overwhelming choice

• low literacy / processing obstacles

• self-perception as a reader.

Over the school holidays, I put together a PowerPoint for the teachers to go through with their classes, addressing questions that came from the survey and feedback, reviewed key library skills, and introduced the audiobook kit for Term 2.

Link from slide:https://bookriot.com/famous-professional-athletes-read-books/ 

Website links from slide:

•LeBron James 

•Kobe Bryant 

•Bruce Lee 

•Stephen Curry 

•Tim Green – YA author

•Rashad Jennings – Reading Challenge

•Megan Rapinoeootball

•Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 

•The ultimate sports reading list: Olympians and Paralympians share the books that made them into champions

•Celebrities' Favorite Books - Radical Reads

•Famous Professional Athletes Read Books

Term 2: Leveraging Existing EdTech

The teachers and I agree that it is unethical and too complicated to introduce external social media sites or apps to the programme. Whatever we do in the classroom, it should remain within the existing school resources and ecosystem for student safety and accessibility.

So, as this is a 'Microsoft school' (the other main alternative being Google products), this means Microsoft Teams is the platform we're using to support the Learning to Love Reading programme.

It was crystal clear from the pilot programme that the students wanted and needed a better way to get reading recommendations from each other, so this year all classes in the programme have a dedicated books "channel" on their class Teams page. This is a digital space where teachers and students can post and comment on book recommendations made within the class.

At the time of writing (May 2025) this is only just being established, and the students are still learning expectations for how to contribute to the resource. For easy reference, we are encouraging the students to group their recommendations beneath the appropriate genre headings. Examples of the posts, to which students 'reply' with their contributions, are below.

The intention is to use this activity as a 5-10 minute 'Do Now' or end-of-period task once a week, accompanied by 'Book Chats' (talking about what they've been reading) in class.

Term 2: Ebooks, Audiobooks, & Audiobook Clubs

The audioreaders and audiobook clubs were a great success in the pilot programme, and not just with disengaged readers. Occasionally, we didn't have enough, as not everyone wanted to read in a group (fair enough!). So, for the second study cycle, I expanded the Audiobook Club Kit with several more on-demand audiobook titles and additional adapted smartphones (I purchased these on TradeMe for $20-$40 each). 

At the time of writing (May 2025) there are now 8 fully-functional "audioreaders" (iPhones 4, 6 and 7) in the regular kit, with a few more in the pipeline as a backup.

At the time of writing, the current audioreader on-demand library includes (2025 additions in bold):

• Billionaire Boy - David Walliams

• The World's Worst Teachers - David Walliams

• How to Train Your Dragon - Cressida Cowell (narrated David Tennant)

• Minecraft: The Island - Max Brooks (narrated Jack Black - huge surge of interest in 2025 due to the film)

• Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan

• Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists, & Flaming Arrows - Robert Muchamore

• The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

• Roswell Johnson Saves the World - Chris Colfer

The teachers and I are strongly encouraging the students to read along with the print copies, but unfortunately we just don't have enough at the moment. The fidget toys have been removed from the kit but the mindful colouring is still offering a good alternative for those who can't/won't read along.

Early signs for Term 2 are promising, with at least half of each of the mainstream classes trying out audiobooks during their library sessions (including on their own devices). However, it may just be the novelty factor and, like the pilot programme, audiobook uptake may see a small drop off in interest as the year progresses.