Platinum

Why is the subject important?

Platinum is a cross-curricular reading programme, run by the English department. This reading-based intervention programme ensures that students who meet specific criteria in Years 7, 8 and 9, have the knowledge and skills to read at chronological age and further develop a love of reading. Platinum lessons focus on:

• Reading fluency, confidence and enjoyment of reading
• Understanding words in context
• Asking questions, discussing and explaining
• Inference and justification
• Prediction
• Summary
• Identification of language, structure, and presentation
• Retrieval and recording.

All of these skills are vital for studying the full range of subjects within school. Students read a book together each half term and there is a clear reason behind each choice of text. Students are taught the content from the humanities subject they miss in order to study Platinum. However, they are taught these subjects by their Platinum teacher with a much higher level of differentiation.

Year 7, 8 & 9 Platinum lessons

Year 7 students learn Platinum instead of French or Spanish and geography. Year 8 students learn Platinum instead of French or Spanish and history. Year 9 students learn Platinum instead of French or Spanish. We strongly feel that, unless our children have the knowledge and skills to read at chronological age and can read a wide range of texts with confidence, they do not have the foundations to future learning and will struggle to access the full range of subjects we offer. Platinum students are assessed three times a year using the accelerated reader programme and they are observed carefully by staff throughout their time in class. This means that we can judge if and when our Platinum students are ready to return to mainstream lessons.

What happens when a Platinum student is ready to move back into mainstream lessons?

They will join a French or Spanish group that has been put together  specifically for students who have been in a literacy intervention group, and they will be able to go straight back into a mainstream humanities lesson as they are taught humanities through Platinum each week.

How can I support my child at home?

Students in Platinum read the first book in the following series. It would be great if students went to the library or to a bookshop to find the next book in the series.

Year 7	Year 8	Year 9
The Bad Beginning Skulduggery Pleasant	Boy in the Tower Stormbreaker Boy by Roald Dahl	The Demon Headmaster Cloud Busting Uncle Montgomery’s Tales of Terror