CAS in the Community

Our Year 10 Community, Activity, Service (CAS) programme has expanded its reach into the community this year with two additional activities available to help others. Last year, Literacy Co-Ordinator and English teacher, Leana Mikula, launched an opportunity for Leighton Park students to help Year 4 pupils at Loddon Primary School improve their reading and writing outcomes. Through a structured training programme with Assisting Berkshire Children to Read (ABCtoRead), our students gained the skills necessary to support younger children’s literacy. The challenges of the pandemic meant that last year much of the support for Loddon was delivered online so it was a happy start to term when we realized that this year Year 10s could sit in the garden at Loddon and meet their Year 4 literacy partners al fresco.

Building on the success of this partnership we have this year launched LP Buddies with Ridgeway Primary School and the RAYS project with Hillside Primary, both KS2 schools within walking distance of Leighton Park.

The LP Buddies initiative provides curriculum support through lessons in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Maths, and is loosely based on the virtual event we ran for British Science Week in March with sessions on coding, engineering and perspective. The RAYS project is a Reading Borough Council programme which encourages citizens to take responsibility for the litter within their own community and to act positively to change their environment. Standing for Reading Adopt Your Street (RAYS) provides volunteers with litter pickers, hi vis jackets, plastics bags and gloves. Our Year 10 students have been volunteering alongside pupils from Hillside Primary School to ensure the area around Hillside looks as lovely as possible.

Head of Sixth Form and RAYS co-ordinator for LP, Helen Taylor, commented “‘The students have worked hard and noted that each time we go the area is tidier. I also think we have all enjoyed a bit of fresh air and adventure in the middle of the day!’

Natasha Coccia, Assistant Head: Partnerships and Outreach, commented, “This term we have really focused on the quality of our education partnerships in Year 10 and the mutually beneficial impact our programme is having both here at LP and with local students and residents. It is so wonderful to see Year 4 students excited, happy and engaged in their learning with our mentors, and even more so now we can see each other face-to-face! From forging bonds through friendship bracelets to literacy scavenger hunts – the visits just get better and better! I am so incredible proud of Team LP.”