On the 29th June, we had the pleasure of attending the annual Little Wandle Conference, hosted by Harper Collins within their beautiful News Building, with stunning views of the city surrounding us at every angle. 
The Conference was an opportunity to bring together Little Wandle Champion Schools to celebrate the successes for children across the country within early reading and phonics.
The theme of the conference was on the power of reading for pleasure, and how we not only need to grow the skill to read, through teaching phonics, but also the will, through enjoyable, exciting and engaging stories, rhymes and reading experiences.
We had the pleasure of hearing from the fantastic and ever-inspiring Theresa Cremin, who delivered our keynote - Reading for pleasure: growing the will? and then later spoke with us about her research into this area and how she is supporting Little Wandle's aspiration to reach every child.
We also heard from different schools about how they grow the will, and our brilliant Claire Barnes spoke about how we ensure we make this a possibility for every child. 
It was a great day celebrating reading across the country, and gave us lots of opportunities to reflect on the huge amounts of progress made by our children at Willow Dene.