For the past four years, students in years 7 – 10 have participated in DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read), once a week during afternoon registration. Usually, students read their own free choice book quietly for 20 minutes. In order to encourage students to challenge themselves, we are introducing one ‘shared’ text each per year group per half-term that we believe is culturally relevant and appropriately engaging.

Students will partially read an extract from the text with their Form Tutor during DEAR time, then bring the extract home to continue reading to the end. This will be their only homework for the holiday period. However, we know that many students will want to do more, and as such, we have designed a range of ‘stretch and challenge’ tasks which students can complete alongside their holiday reading. All stretch projects completed will be rewarded.

Finally, students who may wish to read the rest of the book can purchase copies of the whole text on Amazon or at bookstores. Some of the texts have been adapted for film and are available on either Amazon Prime or Netflix. We very much hope that you will encourage and support children with this reading. Further information about the texts and the activities is available on the school website.

DEAR Texts