A pupil at one of Aquila, the Diocese of Canterbury Academies Trust, schools has made an astonishing five years’ progress in his reading in just four months.

Luke Rogers, 11, went from reading only 143 words per minute to a fluent 309 words per minute in only 16 weeks after his school, St Clement's Church of England Primary School in Leysdown, adopted a new approach for some pupils.

The school experimented with Reading Plus, a programme that encourages healthy competition among pupils and uses AI to improve reading fluency. 

The primary school already has a strong emphasis on reading, with a dedicated daily time for pupils to read each day and reading challenges and competitions over the holidays. 

Kelly Lockwood, St Clement’s Headteacher, said Luke had “worked his socks off” and was “a model of persistence for his classmates”.

She said the 11-year-old, whose favourite author is David Walliams, is “highly motivated, persistent and has an excellent work ethic”.

She said the school had found a number of its pupils were highly motivated by the Reading Plus programme “because it seems to provide a different approach to reading, which has helped some of our more reluctant readers, as well as those who were already enjoying a good book”.

“Luke really wanted to be top of the leaderboard in reading,” she said.

Gemma Rogers, Luke’s mum, said her son now has “much more enthusiasm for reading, especially with the friendly competition between him and his classmates about who can read the most words”.

“It has really increased his motivation and his reading ability.  We are very proud of him and his dedication to his reading," she said.