Simon Baddeley

Happy #WorldTeachersDay2025 from all of us at The Literacy Engine.

Celebrating the literacy engineers that drive literacy forward every day.
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Gears of Thought October 2025 - The Literacy Engine Every month, members download a set of weekly extended reading packs for use in tutor time and across the curriculum. The texts in each pack explore a rich variety of topics significant to that time o...

Week 6 and our diverse topic choices are:
⚙️What is "Fair Trade"?
⚙️The 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott
⚙️Vladimir Putin
⚙️Have you ever wondered why different cultures celebrate the harvest?

How do your students start their day?
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With our FREE General Election sample packs you can see how our Core & Simplified Language Version packs map against PSHE, SMSC, British Values, & Citizenship objectives.

Download them now to see how we could transform your Tutor Time reading programme.

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We featured Jane Goodall's work in April this year as one of our inspirational individuals. The world is a better place thanks to her work. #RIPJaneGoodall

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Are still using "Drop Everything And Read"?
Has your novel based tutor time reading programme lost its momentum?

If the answer is yes, please drop us a message. We can help you better harness that time & create a culture of reading across your curriculum

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We enter October this week and #BlackHistoryMonth

Our students will read about:
⚙️ The Race Relations Act
⚙️ The Bristol Bus Boycott 1963
⚙️ Mae Jemison
⚙️ The European Convention on Human Rights

How do your students start their day?
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🚨⚙️NEW RESOURCES ALERT⚙️🚨
November Gears of Thought is now live!
⚙️ European Convention on Human Rights
⚙️ Conspiracy Theories
⚙️ Freddie Mercury
⚙️ The ISS
How do your students start their day?
literacyengine.co.uk/index.php/ge...

How often do students encounter new information in your subject via reading? How often is it a YouTube video?

We've covered the entire KS3 curriculum for Geography, History, and Science & share a topic every month. September's pack is "1066".
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Drop Everything And Read.

At @researchED1 I shared this definition of the practice then shared where I'd adapted it from.

English teaching is one of the last hiding places of Discovery Learning and needs to be weeded out by the roots. Our students deserve better.
@literacyengine.bsky.social

This week we engage students with reading and discussion around loot boxes and microtransactions in video games. It is important that young people are self aware about how this form of hidden gambling can quickly become addictive.

What we crafted was an evidence based Interactive Read Aloud model that puts knowledge and fluency building at the heart of a cross curricular model for reading across the secondary curriculum.

We looked at evidence based pedagogical theory and applied it to help shape our model. We took Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction and built a model for reading across the curriculum.

When we created our Interactive Read Aloud model, we started with the evidence of what works well.

We knew some of the most common practices used to develop reading across a secondary school were having no impact, so we researched what was.

A Tutor Time reading programme involves more than just giving tutors a set of novels & saying "read this aloud". Our programme provides support, PSHE mapping, oracy & debate strategies, and differentiated text levels throughout. It is built for success!

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Thank you. Looking forward to following your journey and helping however I can!

Simon, it was a great session. Thank you for your presentation--you pithily and humourously articulated so many of my views! We'll be expanding on our LE rollout from last year; I look forward to touching base in more detail about practice--and maybe even some CPD.

If you want to know more about how your Tutor Time reading programme could be super charged by our evidence based, knowledge rich programme, try our FREE sample packs.

There may even be a cheeky discount for @researchED1 attendees if you drop us a message
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Session 4 in M26 @researchED1!

Myth busting, research wrangling, and evidence in action. Let's deromanticise reading!

See you there, folks! 👋
Literacyengine.co.uk

Pricing 2025/26 - The Literacy Engine Buy Buy Gears of Thought are monthly extended reading packs to embed modelled, non-fiction reading into your Tutor Programme or across the curriculum. It is back again for the 2025/26 academic year bi...

There's still time to join us for this academic year. Drop us a message today, and we could be helping to transform your Tutor Time reading programme by the end of the week.

Here's what your students could benefit from with us:
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We hit the ground running in Week 1 with topics including:
📊 What is the difference between privatised and nationalised companies?
▶️ Why were YouTube fined over children’s data?
👸 Princess Diana
🍲 Have you ever wondered what makes food “organic”?

literacyengine.co.uk/index.php/ge...

🚨⚙️New Resources Alert⚙️🚨

October resources are now live, including:
⚙️ The Race Relations Act
⚙️ The Bristol Bus Boycott 1963
⚙️ Mae Jemison
⚙️ The Cuban Missile Crisis

How do your students start their day?
literacyengine.co.uk/index.php/ge...

I'm getting some final bits ready for my session @researchED1 next weekend.

I'll be digging into some of the myths around Reading for Pleasure & the evidence that shapes them before looking at a whole school model for reading across the secondary curriculum.

Come say hi! 👋

Cognitive overload affects teachers too, especially when teaching out of specialism

Our Tool Box is designed with practical, evidence based classroom strategies at the core to empower teachers across the curriculum to become confident teachers of literacy
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Our FREE General Election Sample pack gives a good example of how our Core packs are supported by Simplified Language Versions for weaker readers. It also shows how Development Cogs maps PSHE, SMSC, British Values, & Citizenship objectives against a text.

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September 2025 adds over 30 new resources to our existing catalogue, giving our members access to dozens of topics each week.

Drop us a message today to find out how September 2025 could be the start of your year of reading.
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THE ENGINE ROOM - The Literacy Engine The Engine Room A Companion Guide to all The Literacy Engine resources including practical solutions to integrating our Interactive Read Aloud model across your school and harnessing the power of our ...

As the new year starts, your staff can keep our Engine Room close to guide them through their delivery of whole class reading regardless of their curriculum specialism

Evidence based, practical strategies ensure purpose & impact in reading sessions
literacyengine.co.uk/index.php/th...

Gears of Thought September 2025 - The Literacy Engine Every month, members download a set of weekly extended reading packs for use in tutor time and across the curriculum. The texts in each pack explore a rich variety of topics significant to that time o...

September includes topics ranging from nationalised vs privatised companies to the launch of Star Trek and its cultural impact.

We help students explore significant events and important individuals, & build crucial foundational knowledge.
literacyengine.co.uk/index.php/ge...

You can now compare our Core pack with the Simplified Language Version side by side on the FREE samples page. You can also see how Development Cogs maps PSHE, SMSC, British Values, & Citizenship objectives against our resources every week. Try it here:

literacyengine.co.uk/index.php/fr...

LinkedIn does the same thing but for a different audience.