Curriculum

Drop Everything And Read

At Central Academy, reading is a key skill that is really important to us.  We aim to encourage students to read regularly to help them become more confident and fluent readers in order to be successful at school and beyond.

We create lots of opportunities for students to read within our school day, including Tutor Time reading, library access, and in-class reading.  Our Tutor Reading Programme aims to promote the enjoyment of reading as well as having proven results in increasing students’ reading age.

The books chosen for the programme have been selected to allow students access to a rich variety of literature including classic fiction, modern fiction, and non-fiction.  Books have been carefully selected to be age appropriate, challenging, and enjoyable. They cover a vast range of topics that will engage and inspire our students and further promote a love of reading.

Many of the books chosen for the programme have won various awards and are regarded as literary classics – some of which our students wouldn’t normally read. The programme aims to expose students to this rich variety of literature to not only promote the enjoyment of reading, but also to gain ‘cultural capital’ and to help shape their character. Here are some examples of texts read across the Key Stages.

 

Year 7

Year 8

Year 9

Year 10

Year 11

Year 12

Year 13

Classic / Pre-20th Century

 The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (C.S Lewis)

 Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

 

The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)

 

A Kestrel For A Knave (Barry Hines)

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

War Horse (Michael Morpurgo)

 

Anne Frank – The Diary Of A Young Girl (Anne Frank)

 

Marina – Carlos Duiz Zafon

 Macbeth (William Shakespeare)

 

An inspector calls (J.B Priestly)

 

A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickins)

 

 

 

Contemporary

The Boy At The Back Of The Class (Onjali Q. Rauf)

Letters From The Lighthouse (Emma Carroll)

 Harry Potter (J.K Rowling)

 

Nisha’s War (Dan Smith)

 The Reason I Jump (Naoki Higashida)

 

The Hunger Games Series (Suzanne Collins)

 Never Let Me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

The Life Of PI (Yaan Martel)

 

The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window (Jonas Jonasson)

Burnt Shadows (Kamila Shamsie)

This story is a lie (Tom Pollock)

Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell)

Why is reading for pleasure important?

  • It helps us develop empathy - the ability to stand in someone else's shoes and understand their thoughts, feelings, and actions. 
  • Reading helps us manage stress - regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels and higher self-esteem than non-readers.
  • Reading improves our relationships and friendships. Social situations are complex and sometimes difficult to navigate, but reading fiction can help us develop skills and understanding in this area. 
  • Reading expands and improves our vocabulary and the better our vocabulary, the more able we are to access the curriculum and the better we do at school. 
  • Reading expands our life experience. Our brains react to stories as if we are actually living the events we are reading about. This means that from your desk in the classroom, you can travel to anywhere in the world and experience almost anything!
  • And most importantly, reading makes us happier! Many studies have shown that people who read regularly, report feeling happier in general than those who don't.

Year 7

The Boy at the Back of the Class

WINNER OF THE BLUE PETER BOOK AWARD 2019 WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES CHILDREN’S BOOK PRIZE 2019Told with heart and humour, The Boy at the Back of the Class is a child’s perspective on the refugee crisis, highlighting the importance of friendship and kindness in a world that doesn’t always make sense

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland

The Story of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland includes the main character of Alice, a girl who mysteriously falls down a rabbit hole which uncovers an amazing dreamland world known as Wonderland. Here she experiences the most interesting, yet marvellous adventures. Which include the introduction of characters such as a rabbit who has a pocket watch, playing a game of croquet with the Queen and even the experience of attending the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardobe

Four adventurous siblings―Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie― step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.

Year 8

Nisha's War

Set against the haunting backdrop of World War II, Nisha’s War by Dan Smith is a powerful tale of loss, resilience, and the supernatural. After fleeing the devastation of Malaya in 1942, young Nisha and her mother seek refuge in her father’s ancestral home on England’s cold northern coast. As her mother falls gravely ill, Nisha must navigate the strict rules of her stern grandmother and the eerie presence of a ghost child who offers a chilling bargain: Amma’s life in exchange for three truths. Blending historical fiction with a touch of mystery, this gripping story explores identity, courage, and the enduring bonds of family.

The Hobbit

A timeless classic. Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services – as a burglar – on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo’s life is never to be the same again.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

Year 9

Kestral of a Knave

Life is tough and cheerless for Billy Casper, a troubled teenager growing up in the small Yorkshire mining town of Barnsley. Treated as a failure at school, and unhappy at home, Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk. Billy identifies with her silent strength and she inspires in him the trust and love that nothing else can, discovering through her the passion missing from his life. Barry Hines’s acclaimed novel continues to reach new generations of teenagers and adults with its powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world.

Frankenstine

The timeless gothic novel of Frankenstein presents the extraordinary battle between man and monster. With the attempt of creating life, the young student of Victor Frankenstein unleashes the force between his own control. Where he sets into motion of a long and tragic chain of events that create Frankenstein to reach the very brink of madness..

War Horse

In the deadly chaos of the First World War, one horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches. Bombarded by artillery, with bullets knocking riders from his back, Joey tells a powerful story of the truest friendships surviving in terrible times. One horse has the seen the best and the worst of humanity. The power of war and the beauty of peace. This is his story.

Year 10

Diary of a Young Girl

A deeply moving and unforgettable portrait of an ordinary and yet an extraordinary teenage girl.
First published over sixty years ago, Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl has reached millions of young people throughout the world.

Marina

In May 1980, fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai vanishes from his boarding school in Barcelona. For seven days and nights, no one knows his whereabouts....
His story begins when he meets the mysterious Marina, the daughter of a reclusive painter. She takes him to a graveyard where they witness a macabre ritual. On the last Sunday of every month, a woman shrouded in black walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the emblem of a black butterfly.
When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her, they begin a journey that takes them to the heart of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona.

Life of Pi

One boy, one boat, one tiger… After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan – and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent yearsIn July 1942, thirteen-year-old

Year 11

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a much-loved classic written by Charles Dickens. Recounting the story and life of the mean-spirited man that is Ebenezer Scrooge, who encounters four visits that all represent a time in his life. Including, the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley and the spirits of his Christmas Past, Present and Future. Every ghost impacts his overall judgement towards his attitude towards others,

Macbeth

In the plot of Macbeth, after hearing a prophecy that he would someday be the king of Scotland, Macbeth, and his wife, Lady Macbeth, become increasingly politically ambitious and conniving. As they seek more power, Lady Macbeth pushes her husband to take action, ensuring the prophecy will come true.

Year 12

Burnt Shadows

Operating on the global level, Burnt Shadows engages with aspects of history surrounding the displacement of individuals in the event of warfare. Spanning over sixty years, the novel covers various historical events, starting with the Bombing of Nagasaki in Japan and culminating with the September 11th attacks.

100 Year Old Man

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he’s still in good health. A big celebration is in the works for his 100th birthday, but Allan really isn’t interested (and he’d like a bit more control over his alcohol consumption), so he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey.

Year 13

White Rabbit, Red Wolf

A YA thriller described as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time meets John le Carré, about a teen math prodigy with an extreme anxiety disorder who finds himself caught in a web of lies and conspiracies after an assassination attempt on his mother.
Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a math genius. He also suffers from devastating panic attacks. Pete gets through each day with the help of his mother—a famous scientist—and his beloved twin sister, Bel.

Hamnet

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.
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