Our Values: Ambition, Compassion and Resilience
Let Your Light Shine - Matthew 5:16
Reading
Reading Culture
At St Barnabas, we believe that creating a reading culture is vital to all children’s development. Becoming a lifelong reader gives children the best possible start in life.
At St Barnabas we champion reading. We share high quality books with children throughout the curriculum – not just in reading lessons. Books are shared in whole school Collective Worships to ensure children at St Barnabas have stories they can discover, share and enjoy together.
St Barnabas Reading Spine
The St Barnabas Reading Spine has been specifically designed to ensure every child at St Barnabas sees themselves in a book and can learn about others through a book. The Reading Spine sits separately to our Book Banding system and are for shared reading with an adult to promote a love of reading. Therefore, the books on the spine may not be at your child’s reading level but will have themes and storylines appropriately matched to their age. The St Barnabas Reading Spine ensures each year group has a range of text types focusing on Doug Lemov’s ‘Five Plagues of Reading’ alongside a range of diverse texts and poetry.
If you would like to contribute to our school library, donations from the Amazon Wishlist are gratefully received and loved by the children at St Barnabas. https://www.amazon.co.uk/stbarnabas/wishlist/
Non-Fiction Reading Spine
At St Barnabas, we fully promote reading throughout the curriculum. In order to achieve this, we have created Non-Fiction Reading Spines for each year group containing a list of books children can acquire and embed the knowledge taught through the wider curriculum. Geography, history, science and RE lessons are supported by the books in the non-fiction reading spine. Research suggests that children learn and remember more when it is taught through an inspiring text.
Download: St Barnabas Reading Handbook
2025-26 We Love Reading!
Term 1 Buddies
Year 6 loved reading to their Reception buddies. We can’t wait to read more to you throughout the year!
Term 2 Advent Calendars
We loved completing the activities on the Advent Calendar of Reading.
Term 4 Leaf Festival
We had a great start to the Leaf Literature Festival this morning.
Congratulations to Willow who was the overall KS1 book mark winner for the trust. Her bookmark will be printed and given to every KS1 child in the Leaf Trust. We can’t wait to see it!
Congratulations to all our St B bookmark and writing competition finalists.
Term 4 Leaf Festival
We had a great start to the Leaf Literature Festival this morning.
Congratulations to Willow who was the overall KS1 book mark winner for the trust. Her bookmark will be printed and given to every KS1 child in the Leaf Trust. We can’t wait to see it!
Congratulations to all our St B bookmark and writing competition finalists.
Term 4 World Book Day
We loved dressing up as our favourite book characters.
Term 4 Buddy Reading
KS2 loved reading to a younger class!
2024-25 We Love Reading!
Term 1 Reading Shed
We are happy to announce that after (many) months of waiting…
The Reading Shed is OPEN!
This truly has been a St B team effort to raise funds and make this area come to life. We have hit many hurdles along the way but we got there in the end! A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to making this area look so inviting for our children:
- The PTA for raising the funds & building the shed
- Avon Artificial Lawns for the artificial grass and groundwork
- Ollie’s parents for the donation of patio slabs
- Jules from Button Up for the beautiful signs
- Everyone who volunteered and gave up their weekend to help with the groundwork
- Mr Coyle for building the furniture
- Our new Y6 librarians for setting the area up and helping children choose and read books today.
The children have set some rules for the area and these were agreed in collective worship today:
- Please be quiet and calm in the area
- Respect the furniture. No climbing or standing – only sitting!
- Two people in the shed at once. Don’t sit inside the shed so other people can choose a book.
- Please keep the books in the reading area or The Peace Garden.
We would ask if you are dropping off or picking up your child in the morning or after school that they do not stand or climb on the furniture. This is so we can keep the area looking nice for as long as possible but most importantly keep your children safe.
Term 1 Reading Champions
Our fantastic reading champions from Term 1 enjoying their hot chocolate and brownies at the Warmley Waiting Room Cafe. Well done Team St B – keep reading!
Cressida Cowell
Year 4, 5 & 6 loved meeting the amazing Cressida Cowell at Bath Literature Festival on Saturday. They enjoyed listening to how she came up with the ideas for the How to Train a Dragon series and her top tips on how to become a famous author!
New Librarians
Our new year 6 librarians are looking forward to spreading the joy of reading throughout St B!
The Travelling Book Fair
A huge thank you to everyone who visited the Travelling Book Fair. We raised over £700 to spend on new books for the library!
Reading Cafe
Our brilliant year 6 librarians loved running the St B Reading Cafe during Parents’ Evening. It was brilliant to see so many parents & children sharing the new books from the library and picking up information for phonics & reading.
The Proudest Blue
Throughout the school, every class produced writing linked to the book ‘The Proudest Blue’. The book has important messages about being kind to others and loving who you are. The author Ibtihaj Muhammad is also an inspirational person and an Olympic medalist!
World Book Day
We had an amazing day celebrating books! The children paraded their costumes in Praise Assembly and a winner from each class was chosen. Each class took part in shared reading with another class and Mrs Dean set the bell off at different times throughout the day for us to ‘drop everything and read’.
Reading Champions
A huge well done to our Reading Champions! They were awarded with a visit to Warmley Station Cafe for hot chocolate & cake. They also most got the first look at the new books for the library!
Stars in the Jars winners
This term’s Stars in the Jars winners were Liberty! Well done Liberty for having the most reads at home – fantastic team work! The children enjoyed their hot chocolate & biscuits whilst Miss Sheppard enjoyed reading them a book of their choice.
Reading Rocks Goody Bags
We’re loving our termly Reading Rocks goody bags! We enjoy the surprise of unwrapping the most current books published – some are even signed by the author!
Birthday Books
Our first birthday book donations! The school loved wishing both children a very happy birthday in Praise Assembly.
Mr B’s Emporium Shopping Spree
A huge thank you to the Siobhan Dowd Trust for funding a book shopping spree at Mr B’a Emporium. Our KS2 children loved choosing a selection of books for our library.
Year 6 Introduce Reception to the Library
Year 6 took their reception buddies to the library and helped them choose their first ‘sharing story’.
A book filled Saturday!
Miss Gough, Miss Sheppard and Mrs Guy loved spending the day with our ticket winners from Y4, 5 & 6!
We took the bus to Bath to the Children’s Literature Festival. We listened to a brilliant talk by authors Katie & Kevin Tsang from the Dragon Realm series. They shared how they find inspiration for writing and even let us take part in designing a new dragon!
We also had an amazing time in Mr B’s Emporium where we had a book shopping spree. We bought some signed books for the library amongst some others which we think will be well loved.
Reading on Camp!
A lunch break on Dartmoor meant one thing ‘reading with a view’!
Term 4 Leaf Literature Festival. 🍃
We loved taking part in the Leaf Literature Festival.
- Launch Assembly
- Bookmark and writing competition
- Author Visits
- Penpal letters
- World Book Day Dress-up
- Drop Everything and Read
- Reading buddies
- … and much more!
Term 4 Author Visits
We enjoyed all our author visits during the Leaf Literature Festival.
- Ian Eagleton
- Louie Stowell
- Karen Owen
- Tom Mclaughlin
Term 5 Goodie Bags
Thank you to the PTA for our Reading Rocks goodie bags. We love to see what is inside!
Term 5 Our Book Hut is now OPEN!
Our sharing community book hut is now open outside the main entrance. You are welcome to borrow a book and leave a book. Please don’t leave any books if it is full.
Term 6 A total of just over £500 raised!
Thank you to everyone who has purchased a book this year at one of our Scholastic Book Fairs. We have raised just over £500 for our library!
