In the Senior Library we encourage students to read a wide range of publications – including the First News magazine. We also sign up to the digital platform – First News Engage Pro, which is specifically for Year 7 students.
This interactive e-learning platform was created to ‘develop key reading comprehension, writing, vocabulary and oracy skills, whilst also learning about the main stories from around the world’.
Home iHub – First News
Engage Pro is updated weekly and includes topical debates, polls, comprehensions, word puzzles and writing challenges based on First News stories. Benefits include:
• Uses news and current affairs to boost literacy and learning.
• Develops pupil’s word power as they explore words and phrases that have been used in news stories.
• Provides probing questions encouraging pupils to dig beneath headlines of current news stories and to challenge them to develop their understanding by inferring, justifying, questioning and predicting.
Source: FirstNews
Comprehensions
Each question encourages understanding, critical thinking, discussion and debate. Multiple choice questions give instant feedback to students.
Differentiated information helps pupils to understand a debate. Pupils can vote, explain their options and then read the viewpoints of others.
Focus on developing pupils’ vocabulary in the context of a news story by analysing with instant feedback to support learning.
How will we use it?
Once trained, Year 7 students will have their own intuitive logins and be able to access the Engage Pro at school (Library lessons and study) and at home. Each week there will be new articles linked to comprehensions, puzzles and debates and the opportunity to earn virtual rewards (points, badges). The articles will cover many different subjects such as nature, world and home news, politics, science, sport and entertainment. We look forward to seeing how students embrace these challenges and we will be awarding certificates for regular use of this e-learning platform.
