Reading Fluency Peer Tutoring

Overview

We propose to extend the North East MSA's current Fast Forward to reading Fluency project into the next Academic Year (2026/27), building upon the success of the current cohort, but narrowing the focus to 20 of our schools that will benefit the most from this approach. Over the past year, work has demonstrated that targeted investment in reading fluency can deliver measurable gains for pupils across the North East. Hundreds of pupils have become more confident, fluent readers, with consistent improvements across standardised assessments. These outcomes matter, not only for attainment, but for pupils' ability to access the full curriculum and improve their life chances. The delivery partner will be expected to design and deliver a peer mediated reading aloud intervention providing: • 20 minute in-school sessions, twice weekly • Carefully sequenced anthologies designed to develop reading fluency, vocabulary and background knowledge • Texts spanning a wide range of curriculum rich domains, including history, geography, science and the arts, supporting both literacy and wider knowledge building • A structured approach to improving reading • Delivery through trained peer tutors, typically Year 10 or Year 12 pupils Schools should be supported to review existing attainment data, and the delivery partner should undertake diagnostic assessment to identify pupils most in need. Each participating school will identify 20 pupils, randomly assigned to: • Intervention group, n equals 10, who receive FFA immediately • Control group, n equals 10, who receive FFA following the trial period The Delivery Partner should have capacity to deliver to up to 20 schools across the North East MSA footprint, and: • Provide an impact study to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. • Provide an in person introductory session to bring together representatives of participating schools to launch the initiative, and subsequent additional network events.