Literacy Overview

‘Young people who leave school without good literacy skills are held back at every stage of life. Their outcomes are poorer on almost every measure, from health and wellbeing to employment and finance’ (Education Endowment Foundation, 2020). As such, it is our aim at Arthur Mellows that all students become skilled and fluent readers with strong inference skills to allow them to gain cultural capital and access texts across the curriculum and beyond.

Literacy impacts self-esteem, motivation, behaviour, and academic attainment.  We aim to always promote high standards and expectations of literacy across our curriculum and beyond the classroom, where we have specific programmes to actively ensure the success of all our students.

In action, our Reading Strategy adopts a layered approach to ensure that reading is embedded across all aspects of the curriculum and supports students with barriers to learning in this area.

 

English Curriculum

Within the English Curriculum:

• Research suggests that giving students choice is important when encouraging reading for pleasure. All students in Y7 and Y8 are given the opportunity to choose books to read in their fortnightly library lesson and are given some time to read the book they have chosen. Our two librarians are there to support readers and if appropriate, will sit with students and listen to them read.  Students are encouraged to ask for any texts they would like to read and the library staff will endeavour to order it for them. 
• Students across the summer term will read 2 novels to develop fluency and build on faster reading. These texts have been selected to challenge and support students on their reading journey, covering a range of different themes and concepts that support British Values such as respect and tolerance. Each English teacher reads aloud to the class, modelling their ‘expert’ reading skills. Before and after reading, there are opportunities to discuss aspects of the novels, developing oracy skills and giving students the space to simply talk about what they’ve read.
• In Y7 we have recently introduced extended homework projects in English to encourage writing for enjoyment. Students are given the choice of three tasks: each task has a different focus and a different outcome so that over the course of a year, students may choose to write stories, create presentations, design leaflets etc. The response has been positive, and we may well introduce these projects to other years groups in the future. It also creates a great opportunity to celebrate students’ creativity.
• This year, we have joined the RSC Associate Schools Programme which aims to bring Shakespeare’s plays to life in the classroom and to equip English teachers with the skills to teach drama in the classroom. As you would expect, much of this programme is based on speaking and performance: using our voices and our words to convey emotion and to elicit responses from an audience. The programme culminates in a performance of a Shakespeare play, bringing students together from across the city of Peterborough.
• The English department use World Book Day as an opportunity to raise the profile of poetry and writing poetry. For the last couple of years, a guest poet has spent World Book Day with us, delivering poetry writing sessions to a number of KS3 of classes. According to the National Literacy Trust, poetry writing can support the well-being of young people as it encourages them to express thoughts and feelings as well as increasing their confidence in reading and writing.
• The English Curriculum is broad and balanced: over recent years, we have moved to a themed-based KS3 curriculum so that our students are exposed to a range of texts that connect to a broad theme that is explored for the whole year. For instance, in Y9 the theme is ‘Discrimination’, and all our students will read from a collection of dystopian extracts written by different writers, as well as Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’. Then, they go on to cover discrimination on the stage through a study of playscript extracts and end the year by looking at poetry and stories written by people from around the world. This wide experience of literature and genres will encourage students to develop a sense of their own reading identity and assist them with making choices about texts they may choose to read for pleasure.
• At KS5, students that choose to take English Literature or English Language are able to make completely independent choices when it comes to their NEA responses. With a teacher’s guidance, they are free to choose their texts and to create their own essay titles, exploring texts beyond the confines of the specification and the set texts chosen by the class teachers. We hope that the broad exposure to Literature texts at KS3 and KS4 prepares students for this truly independent component at A Level.

 

Whole School

Whole school, this includes:

• Incorporation of disciplinary literacy across all subjects using whole school reading steps approach focused on accessing texts by predicting, highlighting, questioning, and summarising. Posters displaying the step-by-step approach are displayed across the school through all curriculum areas.
• Teachers display a poster of a recommended book on their classroom door, promoting a culture of reading across different subject areas.
• Regular CPD delivered to staff on literacy approaches and further CPD recommendations from the National College shared amongst staff
• Monitoring teaching and learning to provide personalised feedback to bring about improvement and celebrate success.
• Whole school literacy marking code to ensure consistency across all subject areas.  Areas of improvement often identified via whole class feedback sheets to allow students to work in rectifying these areas.
• Subject Literacy Leads/ Teaching and learning group to meet regularly to share good practice across all curriculum areas.

 

Beyond the classroom

Outside of timetabled lessons, this includes:

• Research- based small group intervention for students with weaknesses in their reading skills using Lexia, active reading strategies and work around phonics.
• NGRT data to be shared with staff at regular intervals throughout the year, highlighting specific students who may need additional support with reading and accessing texts in the classroom.
• A fortnight of competitions, games, guest speakers in the fortnight surrounding World Book Day to promote reading for pleasure.
• Resources to encourage reading, spelling and oracy emailed in the Summer Term to take place during professional tutor time for KS3 and KS4.
• Book buzz books ordered for every new Y7 student to promote a love of reading and allow every student to own their own book.
• Booknic event arranged in the Summer Term to celebrate successes with reading. Students who have overcome barriers to learning in this area as well as our most avid readers at KS3.
• Year 12 Reading Ambassador programme. Year 12 students trained on reading strategies and work 1-1 with Year 7 students to build on fluency when reading. Students selected for this group have been identified through analysis of NGRT data.
• Access to a welcoming, diverse and well-stocked library with the support of two passionate and enthusiastic librarians who have a love of reading.
• Literacy enriched trips arranged throughout the year and during Activity Days. E.g. Harry Potter studios.
• Homework club available in the library Monday- Thursday to support students to access information and texts with the guidance of staff
• Kindle breakfast reading club offered in the Inclusion department for students with additional needs.

Summer reading challenge, quizzes, library reading list available to each Year Group, delivered by the librarians and shared via The Voice to parents.

 

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