Colmore Junior School, Birmingham

"The biographies truly engaged the children, inspiring them and piquing their interest to read more."

Colmore Junior School is in Birmingham and trialled early access to the Learner’s Library Biography pack with pupils in Year 5 over the summer term.

"We recently had the opportunity to test out the Learner's Library Biography Pack with our Year 5 students. The ReadingWise Learner's Library is a fantastic resource that explicitly teaches and models comprehension strategies for children through a combination of independent online work and teacher-facilitated discussions.

Although we weren't able to use it as extensively as we'd hoped due to the busy time of year, the feedback from our teaching assistants and pupils has been overwhelmingly positive:

The biographies truly engaged the children, inspiring them and piquing their interest to read more.

The content was well-pitched and suitable for their level.

We appreciated the standalone sessions, which eliminated the need for absent students to catch up with ongoing stories before rejoining group sessions.

The children themselves gave positive feedback, highlighting the structure and layout as easy to follow and enjoyable. Despite pushing for any negative feedback, none was found!

We ran the sessions over three weeks, with a structure that included a brief introduction by the TAs, followed by independent online work and group discussions afterwards. The results have been incredibly promising, and we look forward to incorporating the Biography pack more extensively in the future."

Assistant Headteacher, Colmore Junior School