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03/12/24

Only a few days to go until the bookfair! Vouchers are a great way to pay for books, and mean students can collect their books on the first day of the fair. See attached for more info. pic.twitter.com/yx3jDx3n8v

03/12/24

Announcing the HABE autumn bookfair (5-11th December)! 100s of books and stationery items will be available, many at vastly reduced prices. What could be better than finding a book in your Christmas stocking? pic.twitter.com/Fk2NK5QVKD

27/11/24

Parent feedback on our Carol ConcertI was hugely impressed with the quality of the performances at the HABE concert last night. The concert band were excellent by any measure - first class. The Yr7 choir, chamber choir and soloists were also incredible as was the Year 7 choir.

07/11/24

A-level History is always a popular choice at HABE, consistently producing excellent results for our students pic.twitter.com/hmU0fzRYeP

07/11/24

Our Politics department is rallying despite a very hectic few days, proving how relevant A-Level Politics is!#theHABEway pic.twitter.com/cZlgmYJIIJ

07/11/24

Our Business department offers, A-level Business, CTEC Business and A-level Economics pic.twitter.com/mmdtY3xGJ8

07/11/24

Our HEA High Flyers staff are here to help our students get to some of the best Universities in the country! pic.twitter.com/ADKC23j0PC

07/11/24

Our Social Sciences - A-level Sociology and A-level Psychology are always some of our most popular subjects with some of our most passionate teachers! pic.twitter.com/DwatLzrhNv

07/11/24

Our A-level Biology students are brilliant, demonstrating their dissection skills, and understanding of different organs! pic.twitter.com/0a5tbRAvee

07/11/24

We offer A-level Photography at HABE, with dedicated and passionate teachers! pic.twitter.com/E9lkcpgck8

07/11/24

Our PE department at HABE is outstanding, offering both A-level PE and CTEC Sport. Our PE department are looking lovely and tanned following their latest KS5 trip to Spain! pic.twitter.com/HQaCLbwOxJ

07/11/24

Our sixth form offers a Football Partnership with allowing students the opportunity to study and have access to high quality coaching and mentorship throughout their sixth form journey, come and see us in MFL3. pic.twitter.com/Obw0O0stmQ

07/11/24

The hall is filling up for our first of two speeches from our Head of Sixth Form and Vice Principal. The second speech will be at 6pm pic.twitter.com/hJPq6XEWkG

07/11/24

Our Sixth Form band Circle Time, are warmed up and ready to rock your open evening!! pic.twitter.com/yt9VhDNUJY

07/11/24

Doors are open, we can’t wait to welcome you to our Sixth Form pic.twitter.com/EQqWCI0zdB

07/11/24

We are excited to welcome you to our Sixth Form Open Evening tonight 5pm - 7pm pic.twitter.com/NjeuAsxKfi

18/10/24

Thank you to our community for the donations that will go to food bank this Autumn 🍂 pic.twitter.com/RICSIAKpRy

17/10/24

Group B over and out! We are on our way back to the academy - ETA is 4:35pm pic.twitter.com/zbl0kapHlJ

17/10/24

Group B on their way to Frylands for a day of adventure. Students are extremely excited for the day ahead pic.twitter.com/fg2gi8dIoF

16/10/24

Group A over and out! We are on our way back to the academy. ETA approximately 4:45pm pic.twitter.com/mGqVx0BjRQ

Harris Academies
All Academies in our Federation aim to transform the lives of the students they serve by bringing about rapid improvement in examination results, personal development and aspiration.

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Reading Across The Curriculum

We are confident that we introduce our students to an extensive selection of texts, deploying appropriate strategies for comprehension and fluency so that students can immerse themselves within their subject and enjoy the opportunities that knowledge of the written word opens. Every teacher is a teacher of reading.

Strategies to Support Reading Development at HABE

Supporting Staff

The reading curriculum

The Big Read

Targeted Intervention

The Library

Celebrating Reading

Equipping staff with the skills and knowledge they need to teach students to become accomplished readers.

Providing opportunities for students to read in curriculum time to create life-long readers

Providing regular reading opportunities for all students to generate confidence in reading for pleasure

Providing specific support for students who struggle to read through highly structured interventions specific to their reading profile

Ofering a suite of reading resources within the heart of the academy

Involving the academy community in special events to raise the profile of reading and engage students

 


Picture 1BDA – Before/During/After

Our research based BDA reading strategy lays the foundation of how reading is taught in all subjects at Harris Academy Beckenham. It aims to promote independence, improvement and an overall metacognitive awareness of how reading is managed in the brain by successful readers. During the Big Read tutor sessions and library lessons, students are taught how to use the Before/During/After strategies. 

Each time reading is encountered in the curriculum, staff will make the implicit skills of reading explicit through teaching reading comprehension strategies and students of all levels will build the skills needed to independently decode, comprehend and respond to challenging vocabulary, texts and ideas.


The Big Read  

All students in years 7 to 10 engage in three Big Read sessions a week, led by their tutor.  Each tutor group is allocated a challenging text which the teacher reads to his/her tutor group with the appropriate degree of fluency (pace, expression, stress and intonation). Explanations and questions are interspersed during reading alongside checking vocabulary and monitoring engagement. This is to model fluent expert reading as well as allow teachers to explain vocabulary, ask questions or offer clarifications.  Students are able to listen on a higher language level than they can read therefore the Big Read programme enables students to access more complex ideas and exposes them to second tier vocabulary. It also exposes less able readers to the same rich and engaging books that fluent readers read on their own. Age-appropriate strategies are used to improve the reading skills of all our young people and ensure that all students, regardless of background, are able to access the challenging texts during these sessions. 

This year our students are reading:

Year 7

  • Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Trash by Andy Mulligan
  • Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Year 8

  • Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorus
  • Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
  • The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani

Year 9

  • Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
  • Boys Don’t Cry by Malorie Blackman
  • Out of the Shadows by Jason Wallace
  • One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Year 10

  • They Both Die in the End by Adam Silvera
  • Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  • When The World Was Ours by Liz Kessler
  • Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Accelerated Reading and library lessons

Our library plays a crucial role with regards to the development of reading. Within library lessons, all year 7, 8 and 9 students follow the Accelerated Reading (AR) programme, and also have an assigned lesson in the library each fortnight. AR is an efficient and successful programme to promote reading and support teachers in monitoring engagement. In order to promote student progress whilst also supporting teacher workload, our librarian runs fortnightly reports for teachers regarding progress and usage. During the assigned library lesson, teachers then target specific students based on comprehension ability and also reading enjoyment – students who have passed quizzes at a certain level more than once will be moved on in order to stretch them, with students struggling to quiz being targeted for individual conversation regarding book choice, genre and/or level of difficulty. Teachers also read with spotlight students during the library lesson in order to minimise the disadvantage gap, targeting specifically those students whose reading age is below their chronological age and are in receipt of pupil premium.