Primary school named as top performing in Wales in reading awards

Monmouth School Girls’ Prep has been recognised for its first-class achievement in the 2017 Renaissance Awards, beating 86 other schools in Wales.

The awards honour the best performing schools from across the country in terms of their implementation of best practices for reading, and student growth in reading attainment – as measured by Renaissance Star Reading and Renaissance Accelerated Reader (AR).

In the UK the AR tool supports more than 1.4m students to become independent readers.

Under AR, students read a book, take a quiz, and get immediate feedback.

Star Reading is aligned to the national curriculum and features highly adaptive software that means its tests cannot be taught to and it is in use in more than 5,500 schools.

Hilary Phillips, headmistress at Monmouth School Girls’ Prep, said: “Reading for pleasure has significant life-long health and social benefits and helps our pupils to appreciate other people’s views. Throughout the school, we recognise and celebrate the importance of reading and the scheme supports and promotes our aims.

“Every girl at the school is assigned a reading level, and we encourage them to read in their own time whether it’s books, Kindles or Tablets. Our pupils want to challenge themselves and we believe the Renaissance Accelerated Reader helps to motivate the girls to read in a fun, engaging and measured way.”

Dirk Foch, managing director of Renaissance, added: “Literacy is the most important building block of learning from which all future academic success flows. It is heartening to see schools that take reading so seriously.

“Everyone at Renaissance UK is delighted to recognise and honour Monmouth School Girls’ Prep’s achievement as the best performing primary school in Wales, and their commitment to reading improvement.

“Rewarding achievement in this way is central to enjoyment for both students and teachers – but in turn making education enjoyable is the first step to improving achievement.”

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