: Creating a Whole School Reading Culture How Evidence‑Informed Practice Transformed Our Approach to Reading

As Reading Lead at our school, I’ve spent the past two years working closely with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to strengthen reading outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. This partnership has reshaped not only our systems, but also our collective belief in what every child can achieve.

Building a Whole‑School Reading Culture

Our starting point was clear: we needed a consistent, research‑aligned approach to reading across all phases, one that would create a whole-school reading culture. Working with the EEF gave us the space to articulate our strategy with precision — what we were trying to achieve, why it mattered, and how we would know if it was working. This reflective process highlighted a key challenge: ensuring that monitoring was purposeful, manageable, and genuinely supportive of staff.

Together, we refined our core monitoring questions:

• Are our agreed strategies addressing the problems we identified?
• Is there a consistent, high‑quality approach to reading across the school?
• Are children developing both the skills and the love of reading they need?

This clarity helped leaders at all levels feel more confident in their role. Lesson drop‑ins, learning walks, and pupil‑voice conversations now focus on observable behaviours linked directly to intended outcomes.

What Changed in Classrooms

Revamped Book Corners:

We redesigned all classroom book corners to make them more engaging and aligned with the expectations of the Reading Framework. Staff reviewed best practice and agreed on actions to ensure these spaces are inviting, purposeful, and accessible. Our school library has also been reorganised so that books are displayed forward‑facing, encouraging pupils to browse, notice, and select from a wider range of texts.

Recommended Reads:

Each class now has its own Recommended Reads box, prominently displayed and regularly refreshed. These selections are shared and discussed in class, giving children daily opportunities to explore high‑quality, age-appropriate texts, which inspire, challenge, and broaden their reading experiences. Exposure to books which celebrate diversity has impacted on their choice of books to take home – as also evidenced through their book talk.

‘If You Like…’:

To support reading independence and widen author choices in KS2, we have introduced ​‘If you like… you might enjoy…’
book boxes. These help pupils who have favourite authors or genres to discover new writers and styles, promoting breadth and confidence in their reading habits. Our Reading Ambassadors have taken ownership of this.

Author Spotlights:

Each half term an author is spotlighted with the children via an assembly and a central display in the main entrance, showcasing books by the author. It has enabled us to promote books with representations that pupils can relate too, and to highlight female authors and those from a range of ethnicities. Our pupils are now requesting a wider range of authors during library visits.

Reading Ambassadors:

Our Reading Ambassadors play a central role in raising the profile of reading across the school. They support whole‑school reading events such as World Book Day, help maintain our library spaces, and ensure reading materials remain up‑to‑date, well‑presented, and accessible. They also champion pupil voice, sharing feedback from their classes about reading.

Books Everywhere:

We are committed to ensuring that books are visible and valued throughout the school. Books feature on subject displays, in themed collections and as part of our rewards system. We also run popular second‑hand book sales, reinforcing the message that reading is for everyone, everywhere. By surrounding pupils with books that show rather than simply tell, we create an environment where high‑quality literature becomes the everyday standard.

Partnerships, Pupil Voice, and Reading for Pleasure

A thriving reading culture is now visible everywhere — from corridor reading nooks to our ​“Home Reading Heroes” initiative. Pupils talk passionately about our Author Spotlights, and older children confidently support younger peers through our Reading Buddy system. Our termly visits to the local library have proven to be successful, with pupils requesting books by different authors, specific titles or series of books they enjoy.

Sustaining the Changes

Sustaining these changes is vital and has also required careful planning. In line with EEF guidance and our focus on disadvantaged pupils, we have increased dedicated subject‑leader time to ensure reading initiatives are coherent, manageable, and impactful. Monitoring of phonics, reading, and vocabulary is now more systematic and targeted, drawing on both staff and pupil voice. We have also adopted a ​‘little and often’ approach to CPD, offering regular 5‑minute training sessions to build staff expertise and confidence.

Our next step is to deepen the sustainability of this work: refining monitoring tools, strengthening parental partnerships, and ensuring every leader continues to champion reading with clarity and purpose. We recognise that every member of staff is responsible and accountable for creating a whole school reading culture.