Reading is not only a skill essential for life, but it is the key to providing children with access to more knowledge.​

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Our aim is for children to leave SAIPS with both the ability to read and a love of reading. English has a pre-eminent place in education and society and a high-quality reading education will ensure the development of fluency in other areas of English: speaking, listening and writing. 

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At St. Andrew’s, through reading we aim to empower our children to become confident communicators and to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. We do this through carefully selecting the books we share in our reading and writing lessons, the books we read to the children at the end of every school day and the support and direction we provide to children when selecting books from the library. The frequent exposure to and exploration of high-quality children’s literature is a vital in our students’ development; the themes and threads connecting the reading materials we chose give children a broader understanding of topics such as refugees, women in history, black history, the world wars. This means that children can build their schema and make connections to prior reading, enabling them to consolidate their understanding of particular concepts. 

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Reading is also an important tool for enabling children to acquire knowledge of the wider world and build on what they already know from first hand experiences. Reading truly underpins accessibility to all other learning. 

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Through our Reading Curriculum, we aim to promote high standards of literacy and language by equipping children with a strong command of the English language, thus empowering them to access and enjoy the full curriculum offered. Reading for pleasure will become a habit and a passion for all children; therefore reading needs to be built into all that we do at school.  This way, the children will build secure relationships with reading that last a lifetime.