Here we share the impact of the Oxfordshire Reading Campaign (ORC) project, which increased the proportion of pupils reaching expected levels in national reading assessments by 8 percentage points in participating schools (from 75% in 2011/12 to 83% in 2013/14).
The two-year programme, commissioned by Oxfordshire County Council to run between 2012 and 2014, aimed to improve reading skills and engagement among children in Key Stage 1. In 2014, 83% pf pupils that had taken part in the campaign for one or two years achieved a level 2b+ in reading, compared with 77% of pupils at target schools that didn’t take part.
In addition, at the end of the project, all pupils who took part read regularly, with 50% reading daily; 74% felt they were better at reading and 73% enjoyed reading much more.
The work was built on through Oxfordshire Gaining Momentum, which aimed to help secondary schools to target literacy across the whole curriculum.