EVERY school in the county should be part of an Oxford Mail-backed literacy campaign, organisers have said.

The Oxfordshire Gaining Momentum scheme, run by the National Literacy Trust (NLT), has got 10 more schools on board for the programme’s second academic year.

But the NLT says it wants even more to get involved and improve secondary school pupils’ literacy after its official involvement ends in July 2016. It has also identified new target areas such as getting more boys to enjoy reading and helping disadvantaged children catch up with their peers.

NLT project manager Malcolm Richmond said: “All the evidence suggests that if we can get our students reading for pleasure then that is the one thing that can break them out of that socio-economic cycle.

“We are being funded by Oxfordshire County Council for another year but we had a big focus on sustainability.

Teachers will be able to cascade this to colleagues in schools across the county and ideally this will reach all schools.”

Henry Box School in Witney started taking part in Oxfordshire Gaining Momentum in the 2014/15 school year.

Deputy headteacher Rebecca Goddard said the scheme could help close the gap between the achievement levels reached by children who received free school meals and their more advantaged peers.

In 2014 just 59 per cent of GCSE students taking free meals in Oxfordshire got five qualifications at grades A* to C, compared to 86 per cent who did not get the meals.

Ms Goddard said: “Literacy is hugely important in closing that gap. It is very difficult when pupils come from families who do not have access to books. What we want to do is find another way to hook them on to reading. We found our kids can speak well and present well but they felt less confident with extended writing.

“We really want to have a big push on that.”

Ten schools took part in the scheme last year, including Henry Box. Another 10 have signed up for this year, with six – The Bicester School, Fitzharrys School in Abingdon St Gregory the Great in Oxford, The Marlborough School in Woodstock, The Oxford Academy and Wood Green in Witney – already officially confirmed and another four expected to join them shortly.

An earlier scheme, the Oxfordshire Reading Campaign, which was also led by the NLT, was backed by the Oxford Mail after Key Stage 1 results in Oxford were the worst in the country in 2010. Pupils who took part in the scheme boosted their reading age by a year after four months.

Oxfordshire Gaining Momentum focuses on improving literacy across all subjects, not just English.

At Henry Box, science pupils will learn how to read and write like a scientist in the hope it will help them to comprehend exam questions and give better answers.

Ms Goddard said: “When people think of literacy they think it is just spelling, grammar and punctuation. But it is about teaching children, for example, what a really good science answer looks like, more of a focus on reading for information, how to structure a letter and so on.”

The Mail will be tracking how four children from Henry Box progress as they take part in the programme.