Ashford School has united to support our Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) initiative. On specified Friday afternoons at the Senior School, extended form time takes the place of whole school assembly. We ask all pupils from Years 7-13 to spend this time reading books.
Pupils are expected to bring their own reading material to these sessions, preferably a novel, a play, anthology of poetry, non-fiction on an era of history or a biography. For KS3 pupils, this should be easy as they should always have their reading book with them for their English lessons. For KS4-KS5 pupils, we provide a short story anthology for each form room, should they forget their book on the odd occasion.
We want this to be time away from computer screens, so we encourage pupils to read physical books rather than eBooks.
We also encourage Ashford School staff to use this time to read, modelling the behaviour we want to see from pupils.
Reading for pleasure improves literacy proficiency, increases empathy and promotes mental wellbeing. Ashford School is proud to promote the DEAR initiative throughout the School.
Pupils can look for reading inspiration on our Reading Challenge lists which can be found here.