Our Literacy Strategy

Our approach:

1. Technical accuracy: students are expected to write using standard English and basic punctuation, spelling and grammar are taught explicitly.  Staff will use metacognitive strategies to enable students to see where writing is successful and unsuccessful.
2. Modelling: Teachers will model writing, emphasising the importance of technical accuracy (basic punctuation and spelling of common words and of specialist vocabulary) and effective organisation of material (sentence structure, paragraphing, headings/ subheadings).  Modelling, working alongside students, will help raise the importance and value of the task.
3. Proofreading: “If it is not proofread it is not finished”: It is important that we encourage students to value the writing they do.  Students are expected to seek out and correct errors before submitting work for marking.  It will take time and effort to train students to do this willingly and thoroughly.  Staff are encouraged to dedicate reflection and proofreading time after any substantial piece of writing produced.   In addition, all students should be reminded about neat and presentable work; each piece of work should have a clear heading and date.

Our approach:

1. To continue the promotion of reading for pleasure through P&A time, guided reading and our accelerated reading programme.
2. As a college we embrace a whole school reading strategy entitled: ‘Before reading, during reading and after reading’ the process is as follows:

Before Reading – The teacher will explore background knowledge of a topic and text; make predictions; clarify any unfamiliar or challenging vocabulary and discuss text types and structure – process? information? opinion? Remind students how it is organised.

During Reading – All texts are to be read aloud by the teacher or student.  Students are asked to follow, the teacher will model strategies to students such as summarising, clarify, predicting and questioning.

After Reading – Students will be asked to summarise the text they have read, engaging in a ‘pin down’ activity.

Our approach:

1. Technical accuracy: students are expected to write using standard English and basic punctuation, spelling and grammar are taught explicitly.  Staff will use metacognitive strategies to enable students to see where writing is successful and unsuccessful.
2. Modelling: Teachers will model writing, emphasising the importance of technical accuracy (basic punctuation and spelling of common words and of specialist vocabulary) and effective organisation of material (sentence structure, paragraphing, headings/ subheadings).  Modelling, working alongside students, will help raise the importance and value of the task.

Proofreading: “If it is not proofread it is not finished”: It is important that we encourage students to value the writing they do.  Students are expected to seek out and correct errors before submitting work for marking.  It will take time and effort to train students to do this willingly and thoroughly.  Staff are encouraged to dedicate reflection and proofreading time after any substantial piece of writing produced.   In addition, all students should be reminded about neat and presentable work; each piece of work should have a clear heading and date.

Our approach:

1. Modelling: Teachers should model how academic language is used in their curriculum area. It is important to model to students exactly how to think, speak and write like subject specialists.  Teachers should all promote the use of Standard English.  
2. Scaffolding talk using the ABC structure: When teaching spoken language skills, it is best practice for students to be given sentence starters or thought stems to aid their discussions as a class or with their peers.  We therefore promote classroom talk whereby students listen and respond to one another, by either adding to, building upon or challenging one another. 

Presentations: Students in Years 7-13 will be asked to plan and present a verbal presentation to their peers in every single subject across the curriculum. By doing presentations, students learn how to speak in front a group, a broadly applicable professional skill. They learn how to prepare material for public presentation, and practice (especially with feedback) improves