• Based in Dubai, Safa British School follows the same curriculum as schools in the UK.
• With 1,200 students from preschool through to 18 and a six form entry, Safa British School aims to provide an education of the highest quality for every child.
• The school is committed to maximizing the potential of every child through a range of creative, imaginative and challenging learning experiences.
  

Nikki is the school’s Head of Reading. She introduced Pickatale to the school in March 2022 after trialing it with one of their year groups in 2021. Pickatale now plays a central role in supporting Safa’s teachers as they help their students learn to read for pleasure. All students in years 3 to 6 now have access to the Pickatale library and use the platform to read in school and at home.

How do you use Pickatale at Safa?

We use Pickatale as a tool for children to read books they are interested in independently as well as integrate Pickatale into our lessons. There are a lot of books that are linked to topics we're doing. For example, when children were learning about chocolate, we found a fair few chocolate books on the platform.

We call it reading across the curriculum. So within all of our subjects, we’ll map out books that can complement what we’re teaching. So, for example, we’ll search for books that are linked to science. Pickatale has enabled us to read across the curriculum - we want our children reading all the time and in lessons now we can guide them towards books to use for research purposes and supplement our lessons. I think the books have supplemented our lessons really well.

Are children reading more than they did previously?

Definitely. To be honest, I was shocked when I first saw the numbers of how many books our children are actually reading on Pickatale. Our stats are amazing. It's great. It’s proof of the love for reading at the school.

When we used to solely get books from the library, the children were limited to only two books per week. Now they have unlimited access to books. For those children who fly through books it's been great to have extra books to read.

In fact, the boy who has read the most Pickatale books this year is somebody who I would say was not really interested in reading before! I think the interactive side of it helps children engage as well. Children these days love technology so it’s great that the books are just there ready for them on their device.

How has Pickatale helped struggling readers?

Well there’s a boy who has read more books than any other student on Pickatale. He's our top reader across the school. He started off with a reading age of around seven years at the beginning of 2022 and he has read and read and read with Pickatale. He's now coming out with a reading age of 10! And I can see his love for reading as well by the way he talks about books and his enthusiasm to select books during library sessions.

In general, we find it harder to engage boys with reading. But I feel Pickatale has really helped with that, especially for the lower to the middle level readers. There have always been some higher-level boys who love reading, but on the whole we do find a difference between boys’ and girls’ reading levels- I think that Pickatale has allowed us to target those boys.

And, because they can listen to the books, it enables some of our emerging readers to sit and listen to a book that they wouldn't usually be able to read.

How has reading for pleasure been impacted by Pickatale?

Our aim is to raise our reading attainment and progress across the school, but in order to do this, we know that we need to increase interest in and a love for reading for pleasure. That is our ultimate goal and Pickatale is helping us to get there!

Children are enjoying reading more now, and they’re enjoying reading across subjects. It’s great because they have so much choice, plus they can either read or choose to listen to a book and enjoy it that way if that’s what they want to do.

Particularly for lower-level readers, it is useful that we can choose different levels of books for them and that they can listen to books that they wouldn't necessarily be able to read and enjoy them that way. Using Pickatale is also a fun and productive way to fill the children’s time before school. Some children get in earlier than others, and we’re finding that spending 20 minutes on Pickatale before lessons start is something the children are enjoying and benefiting from immensely.