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How NGRT has helped unlock personalised reading support at Maes Y Morfa Primary School

By Louise Jones, Head Teacher, Maes Y Morfa Community Primary School, South Wales

School type:

Maes Y Morfa Community Primary School serves a vibrant but significantly disadvantaged community in South Wales. With only 32% of the families in employment and 46% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the children face a range of challenges, literacy being a prime area of concern. Parents often lack the confidence to support reading, and that means the responsibility for literacy development falls heavily on the school. 

We spoke to Louise Jones, Headteacher at Maes Y Morfa Community Primary School, to hear how GL Assessment’s New Group Reading Test (NGRT) has impacted the school’s approach to literacy and how it has supported teaching staff. 

 

The challenge with tracking reading progress

At our school, 40% of our pupils have additional learning needs, including ADHD and other learning difficulties, and many families lack access to books or the confidence to support reading at home.

Before we started using NGRT, we relied on the Welsh Government National Reading Test to evaluate the reading skills of our pupils. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet our needs, as it was limited in scope, only assessing a narrow age range and failing to capture the full spectrum of reading abilities. This made it difficult to track progress or plan effective interventions.

We needed a reading assessment tool that could do more than just a test. We needed something that could guide, inform, and empower our teachers to deliver targeted, meaningful support. We heard about NGRT from other schools in our cluster that were successfully using it and decided to give it a try. What we found was a tool that not only assessed reading ability but also gave us the data to act on it quickly and effectively.

Key outcomes:

  1. 1

    Up to 28% of pupils made accelerated progress in reading, compared to just 10% in previous years.
  2. 2

    14% of pupils in one year group showed significant improvement in reading level after targeted interventions.
  3. 3

    Interventions are more focused, with clear identification of skill gaps and measurable progress.
“

The reports are incredibly detailed and easy to use—it saves hours of teacher time.

”
Louise Jones, Head Teacher, Maes Y Morfa Community Primary School, South Wales

Rolling out NGRT

We started small, piloting NGRT in Years 2 and 6. The feedback from staff and pupils was overwhelmingly positive. We printed out the reports, discussed them with the teachers, and asked the children what they thought about them, and everyone seemed to like it. Teachers found the reports easy to interpret and immediately useful for planning. Pupils also appreciated the adaptive nature of the test, which adjusted to their ability and reduced anxiety.

We then expanded NGRT across more year groups, integrating it with our Management Information System (MIS) to streamline administration. The reports allowed us to group pupils by specific skill gaps and plan targeted interventions. Teachers could quickly identify who needed support and in what areas—without hours of manual analysis.

We also used NGRT data to inform our morning intervention sessions, which we call DEAR time (Drop Everything and Read), where the teacher allocated specific activities to specific groups of children to enhance their skills. This allowed us to deliver focused support to both struggling readers and those ready to be stretched further.

Transforming reading

NGRT has helped us move from providing generic reading support to truly personalised learning. Teachers can now group pupils by specific needs, plan targeted interventions, and track progress over time. The adaptive nature of the test means that pupils aren’t overwhelmed, and teachers can identify those who need extra support without singling them out.

Looking ahead, we plan to use future literacy funding from the government along with NGRT data to enhance both ends of the attainment spectrum – supporting our most vulnerable learners while also stretching our higher achievers.

NGRT hasn’t just helped us assess reading - it’s helped us transform it. And in a school like ours, that’s everything.
“

NGRT allows us to identify specific skill gaps and plan interventions that are truly personalised.

”
Louise Jones, Head Teacher, Maes Y Morfa Community Primary School, South Wales

Featured Assessments

New Group Reading Test (NGRT)
A standardised, adaptive, termly assessment to measure reading skills against the national average.
Find out more - New Group Reading Test (NGRT)

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