Literacy is truly at the heart of learning. It is extremely important that all our students maintain a love of reading and writing throughout their time with us at West Hill School. Reading especially helps to improve concentration, reduce stress, increase vocabulary and develop clarity of thinking. The habits we want to instil in our students are lifelong and enriching.

Our school library is a great place for our students to develop their love of reading. We have over 3000 titles on the shelves, with more being added regularly. We also have special featured books, authors, series and themes. We celebrate important movements during the year, such as Black History month and Pride month. We want reading to be something to educate, to nurture and, most importantly, to enjoy.

To make sure we know the reading ability of all our students, we conduct regular testing on vocabulary, inference, speed, comprehension and phonics. All of this data is collected and analysed, so that we can find any students who need the extra support of our intervention programmes. We use Rapid Plus to help our Year 7 and Year 8 students, whilst Years 9 and 10 use a similar programme. Our success rate from intervention is extremely good and those students feel the benefits in all of their subjects.