When it comes to teaching reading, we have long known that there are issues around the transition from key stage 2 to key stage 3.

An Ofsted report raised concerns back in 2015, highlighting “slow progress made in English” at KS3 in some schools. And further research has found that many secondary teachers struggle to cope with the number of students entering Year 7 not able to read at the expected level.

The government’s answer has been a training package of online resources aimed at secondary school staff and a plan to introduce a new compulsory reading test at the end of Year 8.

But at Three Saints Academy Trust we have been doing our own work to address the challenges with KS2 and KS3 reading for the past four years, through a project called Are You Really Reading? (AYRR), funded by SHINE Trust.

AYRR is a toolkit designed to equip students with the skills to summarise information as they read. It uses modern tools like hashtags and emojis to help students engage with and understand texts more deeply.

It’s not a scheme of work, but is designed to enhance the reading offer that a school already has in place.

So, how exactly does it work?

Consistency and simplicity are at the heart of AYRR. The toolkit consists of five “strands” that can be used with any year group, with the only variable being the difficulty of the text being used.

Very little planning and preparation is required to use these strands. This is a “less is more” toolkit where scaffolding, modelling and discussion are the most important skills. Paper, Post-it notes and mini-whiteboards can all be used, but the strands do not need digital resources. This means they can be used anywhere, even in corridors.

The strands can be used during whole-class, small group and one-to-one reading sessions, English lessons and across the curriculum. Assessment is instant (through students’ verbal or written responses) and learners can even apply the strands to independent work.

Bridging the gap between KS2 and GCSE

The idea for the toolkit came about through comparing the requirements of the KS2 reading tests (Sats) with the reading requirements of GCSE English, and recognising that they are not at all similar.

We wanted to design something that would bridge the gap, and so developed AYRR.

Although SHINE initially funded training for teachers in Years 5 to 8, our trust match-funded so we could train staff from early years foundation stage to KS4.

In the first year we trained all staff from the three primary schools in our trust (these schools vary greatly in their pupil premium proportion - one school has 70 per cent, another has 30 per cent and the third has 5-10 per cent) and the English departments from two local secondary schools. Project leaders were present in classrooms to observe how the strands were working; this helped us to refine the training, the handbook and the progression of skills documents.

In the second year we targeted a further 25 primary schools (including as many feeder primary schools from our two existing secondary schools as we could) and five more secondary schools. In the third year we doubled those numbers and in the fourth year we scaled up again.

AYRR is now being used in 156 primary schools and 13 secondaries across the North West, with a focus on Bolton, Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton and West Lancashire.

So far, more than 46,100 children have benefitted from the programme, and 2,164 staff have been trained to use it.

In 2024 we received a sustaining grant from SHINE and we are now looking to expand the programme beyond the North West region.

The growth has been significant, but how well is AYRR working?

Raising reading levels

Last month an independent evaluation by ImpactEd found that the programme is helping children to make strong progress in reading, and that the longer pupils take part in the programme, the better they perform.

For pupils who spent three years in the programme, the number reading below expected levels dropped from 36 per cent to just 7 per cent, while those reading above expected levels increased from 16 per cent to 39 per cent. Not a single pupil in the three-year group saw their reading level drop.

The evaluation also found that while AYRR works for all pupils, those entitled to pupil premium, boys, reluctant readers and those with special educational needs and disabilities all make better than average progress.

The next stage of the evaluation will look more closely at the impact of the programme at secondary school, but early data is encouraging.

There is some evidence from schools that KS3 students who did AYRR at primary school make better progress in Year 7 than their peers who did not do AYRR.

Beyond these results, schools have reported some additional unexpected “wins”, such as supporting transition between the key stages and professional development gains.

Many staff have reported that they better understand the progression of reading skills now and would happily cover a lesson in any year group as long as they could use AYRR because, as one teacher put it, “all I would be changing is the book”.

Pupils, meanwhile, report feeling more motivated to read for pleasure and more engaged when it comes to reading assessments. One pupil wrote, “I am not scared of reading tests any more.”

Ultimately, the real power of AYRR is that it helps pupils to recognise that reading is an active process; it’s not something you do passively.

As one pupil explains: “Now when I read I summarise or think, ‘That sounds important to the chapter.’ I didn’t used to do anything except read. Reading is quite fun now.”

Maddy Barnes is executive director of English for The Three Saints Academy Trust

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