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Castle Gardens Primary School, Newtownards
Open Morning Castle Gardens Primary School and Pre-school will be hosting an Open Morning on Saturday 10th January from 10am to 1130am.  This is an opportunity for families to come along who were unable to attend our Open Afternoon in December, or indeed due to Storm Bram were unable to view our extensive school grounds.  Join us on our Open Morning and connect with staff, governors, parents, and pupils and discover how our extended wraparound care, enriching extra-curricular activities, and outstanding academic results have made Castle Gardens P.S. the fastest-growing school in Newtownards. Please complete this form below to book a place at the event. [Open Image] | The Final Newsletter of 2025 is Now Online School Returns on Tuesday 6th January 2026 [Open Image]
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Paired reading

27th Feb 2023

Today started a form of Peer Tutoring in school called paired reading with the P5 and P7 children.  This has been a programme that we have trialled in previous years and proved very successful in raising confidence in reading, questioning skills, phonics and social relationships.

These are the key elements:

Older pupils are paired with a younger pupil from their reading ages.  Some pairings may have to be a triad due to numbers.

The reading cycle alternates between the tutor P7 and the tutee P5 reading together and reading alone. The tutor helps the tutee gain confidence by reading at a speed just behind the reading of the tutee. The tutors are encouraged to read with intonation and expression to encourage tutee to do likewise.

Questioning will happen before reading the book, during the reading and after reading. To help the children with this there are question mats that they can make use of. The questions on the Question Mats are differentiated depending on the reading ability of the pupils. 

We will run this programme from this week until easter and hopefully see an increase in reading ages, confidence, and social interaction.

Mrs Turtle