Engagement, confidence and empowered readers. What happened when Boundary Primary adopted ABC Reading Eggs

Meet Boundary Primary. This 400-student school sits in the middle of a council estate in Blackpool, one of the most deprived areas in the country.

Nearly every year group from Nursery to Year 6 is represented, and it’s a diverse School community: some students have parents who are senior doctors at the nearby hospital; others come from families where English isn't spoken at home or where reading just isn't part of the culture. With high need, low attendance and language barriers in the mix, the staff at Boundary Primary are determined to make a difference.

Now meet Samara Crystal. She's been teaching for nine years, eight of them at Boundary Primary – currently Year 4 teacher and phase leader. We sat down with her to hear how Reading Eggs helped Boundary Primary crack problems holding them back.  

Most case studies are about a product showing up and making things better. This one's a bit different. Yes, Reading Eggs made a difference, but the real story is one of relationships – and it’s about time we met our third hero. Stephen Phillips, the 3P Learning Representative who walked the extra mile to meet the school where they were, whether it meant online guidance or showing up in person.

Now that we've met the key characters, let's dig into what actually happened, and see how a trial turned into something that changed reading at Boundary Primary.

The challenge: A policy that only reached some, a reading culture that didn't exist at home

 Boundary Primary had a reading homework policy: all students should read three times a week at home. What sounded straightforward elsewhere, came with a catch at Boundary.

For the past three years, they'd subscribed to a different online reading resource – a solid program, but one designed only for children reading at Year 3 level and above, which meant a significant chunk of the school was left behind.

"At the beginning of this year, I had about eight or nine children in Year 4 alone who weren't at their reading age," Samara explains. "So they couldn't access [the programme]."

Multiply that across the school's year groups, and you're looking at dozens of students with no structured reading tool to use at home. They had a homework policy they couldn't deliver on, at least not equally.

A lack of reading culture was the second biggest challenge that surfaced in our conversation.

In many homes, reading just wasn't part of the routine. So if the school couldn't offer a way in – something accessible, engaging, designed for students who were behind – those students would fall further behind.

When the team gathered for their half-termly progress meeting to discuss renewing the program, Samara and her year group partner asked the obvious question:

"What's the point when it's only servicing probably not even half of the school?"

The solution: "Reading Eggs can be for anyone" 

The school’s Special Educational Needs Coordinator mentioned that Reading Eggs was being used at her son’s school. Samara had never heard of it, so she started investigating. That’s when Stephen stepped in, walking her through the platform and showing her exactly what teachers and students would see.

The school ran a trial. Then, feedback came back from staff and students. Year 6 initially thought it was too babyish until they discovered certain areas of the program could be disabled, and once that was actioned, they genuinely loved it. When they compared the cost per student, Reading Eggs came out ahead. More importantly:

"Everyone could do it and it really, really doesn't matter what level you're at."

"[Reading Eggs] can be for anyone," Samara continues. "You're starting off from that very, very beginning. I had three children in my class whose reading age was less than four years and five months. And it's been so nice to be able to say, like this afternoon, they had 45 minutes on Reading Eggs because I had to go to another meeting. And it's just something easy to leave for them all."

The school gained a program where every student, from the start of school through Year 6, could access something pitched at their level. The access problem was solved; reading was no longer out of reach for some.

Stephen came in for face-to-face training with the staff. He showed them the teacher dashboard, how to set assignments – things that hadn't been obvious in the online walkthrough, making the implementation smooth. By term time, using Reading Eggs felt normal.

The whole-school impact: Improvement, engagement and 'a massive confidence boost'

Now for our favorite part: what actually changed.

Boundary Primary assesses reading and comprehension ages at the start of each term. Five students who'd been below age-related expectation at the start of the year were reassessed. Two of them were now at age-related expectation. The other three were still below, but the improvements were real – one with a reading age jump of seven months, another ten months.

It's not a straight line, and Samara doesn't pretend it is. The school had made other changes in their provision too – "you can't say it's one thing," she says. But this:

"All of them bar one actually have gone up and some of them like really significantly. [...] There have definitely been improvements in reading and comprehension."

is what the school data showed. It aligns with the findings of our latest research: consistent use of Reading Eggs delivers measurable growth in both reading skills and comprehension.

Numbers are one thing, but the bigger shift was cultural

Students started asking to go on Reading Eggs: "oh, miss, please can I go to the library?" In a school where "there's a really poor reading culture," that was huge. Some students were on it for hours at home - collecting their eggs, choosing to read, learning through play.

"Yeah, and they love it. There's not one child that moans when you say, right, get your laptops, go and read next for 10 minutes, 20 minutes," Samara says.

For the students with additional needs – the ones Samara had worried about most – something shifted. With headphones on, they were doing the same thing as everyone else. No one could see they were on a lower level.

"It's a massive confidence boost for them that 'I'm doing this by myself and I'm doing the same thing as everyone else'," Samara says.

Teachers could leave the class for a meeting and know the students were getting on with something meaningful. They worked through lessons independently. "They just navigate it themselves and it's a way of gaining some independence," Samara says.

While the program solved the access problem, it delivered something much bigger: a tool that worked for every learner, engagement that shifted the culture and quiet confidence for the students who needed it most.

The verdict: 5 stars out of 5 for Reading Eggs

When we asked Samara to rate Reading Eggs on a scale of 1 to 5, she didn't hesitate:

"Oh, five, easily."

But when she talks about the experience, the program itself is one half of the story. Educators responsible for implementing a learning solution know that the other is the support behind it. Stephen didn't leave Boundary Primary hanging after the trial. When they had questions, he got back to them. When they needed training, he showed up.

"It's all been really easy," she says. "Really easy and straightforward."

We'd love to say this story has a happy ending – problem solved, equity locked in, reading culture thriving. But it’s still being written. Boundary Primary continues to use Reading Eggs, and students continue to choose reading which is the best ‘happily ever after’ we could hope for.