Reading at UHS

Dear Parents/ Guardians,

Welcome to The University High School! 

The English & EAL Faculty would like to formally welcome you to the school community and ask for your support in encouraging our young people to read regularly. A core value for us is the literacy progress of all our students and a way to develop this is through daily reading practice. 

At The University High School, we are extremely fortunate to have a well-resourced Library and students in Years 7 – 10 have scheduled wide reading sessions as part of their English curriculum. Whilst this opportunity enables access to the collection and some time to read, more time spent reading is needed to significantly improve reading outcomes and practices. Students who read daily are more likely to read above their age level than non-reading peers.

In secondary school many students lessen or stop reading outside of school. Homework, extracurricular activities, and increased family responsibilities can often consume a lot of students’ time. However, reading is a vital part of their development and daily routine, and it is our expectation that students undertake at least 15 minutes of reading each day.

We hope that together we can create a culture of engaged and motivated readers. Being involved in your child’s reading can influence their engagement, and therefore it is important for our students to have support at home to promote reading.

If you would like further information, please speak to your child’s English teacher during Parent-Student-Teacher conferences later this term. For further reading, please see Grattan Institute’s The Reading Guarantee: How to give every child the best chance of success. 

Kind Regards,

The English and EAL Faculty