Literacy and Reading at St. George’s

 

  • All understand that literacy is the expression of pupils’ understanding of ideas, concepts, facts and skills.  We also understand that oracy underpins the development of reading and writing as well as supporting the strengthening of long term memory.

  • All staff are trained and have a responsibility to explicitly teach new vocabulary in their subject.

  • Bespoke CPD is offered by the Literacy Lead to departments who have been identified needing support on reading strategies and introducing new vocabulary. This includes support and training on the teaching of extended written responses across the curriculum where the Literacy Lead works collaboratively with subjects to ensure the progression and development of pupils' extended writing.

  • Oracy is improved and strengthened through the building up of verbal responses through ‘quick-fire’ questioning, with the expectation that pupils upscale their answers, leading up to a developed  and extended verbal response. ( S.H.A.P.E answer).

  • Specialists trained in the delivery of the Direct Instruction Literacy Programme teach identified cohorts of pupils who are significantly below the expected reading age for secondary school. This has been introduced to support lower ability pupils to progress with their reading fluency and comprehension and writing skills, thus contributing to closing the gap between the disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged cohorts so they can more easily access our knowledge-rich curriculum

  • St George's has a growing number of colleagues who are examination markers for the GCSE boards in order to support personal individual development of the knowledge and skills needed within a range of curriculum areas, particularly with regards to accessing the training and models of extended written responses. This is modelled in departmental CPD and supports subject curriculum development.

  • St Georges uses the Accelerated Reader programme with all of year 7 and lower ability Year 8 which establishes a baseline of reading ability and then monitors and measures progress through regular ‘Star Reading Tests’ which then assess reading ages.

  • The teacher, as the expert in the room, models the reading aloud in class in order to demonstrate accurate pronunciation and enunciation, building more fluent comprehension for a wide range of pupils

  • The library has its own full time librarian - pupils are encouraged to visit and regularly change their books; it has a rich and varied up-to-date supply of texts. All pupils in Year 7 also have a weekly library lesson with the librarian where they are guided on appropriate book choices, engage very competitively in reading competitions, and have the opportunity to read aloud on a one-one level to improve their own fluency

  • The English department has a reading for enjoyment curriculum, dedicating a lesson a week to a novel that has been chosen by the teacher. The teacher reads the novel to the class thus removing the analysis of structure and the usual assessment criteria and enabling the pupils to literally 'enjoy the story.' Unusual vocabulary and the story sequence is still discussed. This has been received extremely enthusiastically by the pupils at St. George's who look forward to these lessons every week.

  • The community pupil leadership team writes for its own 'St. George's Bugle' newspaper as part of the elective co-curricular programme, thus encouraging pupils to engage in the reading and writing of local events, book reviews, interviews and Christian values.

Literacy & Reading