Literacy Defined

 ‘Literacy is the ability to read and use written information and to write appropriately and legibly for a range of purposes, within a range of contexts and for a variety of audiences. It also involves the integration of talking, listening and critical thinking with reading and writing and includes the knowledge that enables the speaker, writer and reader to recognise and use language appropriate to different social situations. Literacy permeates and develops learning in all areas of the curriculum, formal and informal, and all areas of social interaction and development.’

                                                              [Every School a Good School (4.7) June 2008]

 1.         Introduction

 All teachers are teachers of literacy.  As such, the staff of Our Lady and St Patrick’s College are committed to developing literacy skills in all our pupils, in the belief that it will support their learning and raise standards across the curriculum, because:

 ·         pupils need vocabulary, expression and organisational control to cope with the cognitive demands of subjects;

·         reading helps us to learn from sources beyond our immediate experience;

·         writing helps us to sustain and order thought;

·         language helps us to reflect, revise and evaluate the things we do, and on the things others have said, written or done;

·         responding to higher order questions encourages the development of thinking skills and enquiry;

·         improving literacy and learning can have an impact on pupils’ self-esteem, on motivation and behaviour. It allows them to learn independently. It is empowering.

 All schemes of work and many, although not all lessons, will include specific literacy objectives.  Each department is expected to include a brief position statement on each literacy mode in their departmental handbook. The implementation of the literacy policy will be monitored and evaluated each year. An annual Literacy Evaluation Report will be made available to staff. The Literacy Coordinator will report to the Principal on the implementation of the Literacy Policy.

 2.         Aims

      ·         To develop and implement a whole school literacy policy;

·         To promote staff awareness of how literacy can improve achievement;

·         To develop pupil literacy.

 3.        Purpose

 The main purposes of this policy are:

• To establish an entitlement for all pupils;
• To raise standards for all;
• To develop the attitudes and dispositions of the NI Curriculum (personal responsibility, self-management, self-belief, flexibility, etc);
• To link language development with the Cross-curricular skills and Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities;
• To develop teaching strategies for underachieving and lowest achieving pupils;
• To improve the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to the development of literacy appropriate to audience and purpose;
• To improve action planning and target-setting and pupil thinking;
• To increase the emphasis given to literacy in Development Planning;
• To improve monitoring and evaluation at all levels;
• To increase parental involvement;
• To improve the dissemination of good practice;
• To build the school's capacity in relation to key cross-curricular literacy strategies.

 4.         Objectives

 The main purpose of this policy is:

• Read, write and speak with confidence, fluency and understanding;
• Speak confidently and clearly, adapting what they say and how they say it to the purpose and audience;
• Listen, understand and respond appropriately to what others have to say;
• Understand the connections between the spoken and the written word;

·         Be able to orchestrate a full range of strategies and cues (phonic, graphic, syntactic, and contextual) to monitor their own reading and writing and to correct their own mistakes;

• Understand a range of text types and genres (fiction and non-fiction) and be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the audience and purpose;

·         Be able to plan, draft, revise and edit their own writing;

·         Develop fluent and legible handwriting;

• Have an interest in books, read with enjoyment and understanding, evaluating and justifying their preferences;
• Discuss reading and writing comprehensively, expressing opinions, explaining techniques and justifying choices, about a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts, using suitable technical vocabulary;
• Through reading and writing, develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness;

 5.         Roles and Responsibilities

 ·         Senior Managers: lead and give a high profile to literacy;

·         English Department: provide pupils with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to read, write and speak and listen effectively;

·         Heads of Department:       set annual literacy target(s) with accompanying Action Plan(s), monitor implementation and provide feedback to Senior Management;

·         Teachers across the curriculum: contribute to pupils’ development of language, since speaking, listening, writing and reading are, to varying degrees, integral to all lessons;

·         Literacy Co-ordinator: supports departments in the implementation of strategies and encourages departments to learn from each other’s practice by sharing ideas;

·         Parents: encourage their children to use the range of strategies they have learnt to improve their levels of literacy;

·         Pupils: take increasing responsibility for recognising their own literacy needs and making improvement.

6.         Implementation at Whole-school Level

 Language is the prime medium through which pupils learn and express themselves across the curriculum, and all teachers have a stake in effective literacy.

Across the school we shall:

 1.      Identify the strengths and weaknesses in students’ work, giving them timely and positive feedback on how they can improve.

2.      Adopt a planned and systematic approach to the development of pupil literacy.

3.      Adapt the identified literacy cross-curricular priorities for each year.

4.      Seek to identify good practice in the main forms of reading, writing, speaking and listening undertaken in each department and strengthen teaching plans accordingly.

5.      Plan to include the teaching of specific literacy objectives to support learning in own subject area.

6.      Review this literacy policy annually.

7.         Approaches to Speaking and Listening

 We will teach pupils to use language precisely and coherently.  They should be able to listen to others, and to respond and build on their ideas and views constructively.

 We will develop strategies to teach pupils how to participate orally in groups and in the whole class, including: using talk to develop and clarify ideas; identifying the main points to arise from a discussion; listening for a specific purpose; discussion and evaluation.

 We will:

·         Create an environment conducive to the development of pupil speaking and listening;

·         Be a model for pupil’s language;

·         Use language that is accessible to the pupils;

·         Act as facilitator, manager of what is going on in class;

·         Provide activities that challenge pupils;

·         Use more open ended questions;

·         Build pupil confidence.

 Staff development needs will be met through in-house training, a Talking and Listening Handbook and resources in the ‘Literacy’ folder in Private Folders 3. These contain useful strategies such as the management of group talk and listening.

 8.         Approaches to Reading

We aim to give pupils a level of literacy that will enable them to cope with the increasing demands of subjects in terms of specific skills, knowledge and understanding. This applies particularly in the area of reading (including from the screen), as texts become more demanding.

 We will build on and share existing good practice.  We will teach pupils strategies to help them to: read with greater understanding; locate and use information; follow a process or argument; summarise; synthesise and adapt what they learn from their reading.

 We will encourage:

• Use of the library;
• Reading beyond set texts;
• Reading for enjoyment;
• Shared reading;
• Guided reading;
• Independent reading;
• Home reading;

 Support material will be placed in the ‘Literacy’ folder ‘on Private Folders 3. A Reading Handbook will provide examples of strategies that can be used to help plan lessons that have a reading focus. 

9.         Approaches to Writing

It is important that we provide for co-ordination across subjects to recognise and reinforce pupils’ language skills, through:

·         Making connections between pupils’ reading and writing, so that pupils have clear models for their writing;

·         Using the Common Marking Grid as the language of marking;

·         Encouraging pupils to proof read and self correct by using the Writing Checklist;

·         Ensuring pupils use the Presentation Checklist to improve the presentation of their writing;

·         Teaching pupils how to write in ways that are special to that department’s subject needs;

·         Being clear about audience and purpose;

·         Providing opportunities for a range of writing including sustained writing.

10.       Monitoring and Evaluation

 The monitoring and evaluation of literacy is crucial in identifying good practice and feeding into future planning.

·         The results of the Year 8 and 10 Progress in English tests will be distributed to staff. Departments will be asked to use the results to target students with specific literacy needs. The Literacy Co-ordinator and Heads of Faculty will monitor how departments are using the results (e.g. via department minutes, observation, meetings with Heads of department, etc).

·         All schemes of work will include specific literacy objectives at least twice a year for each mode, and this will be monitored by the Literacy Co-ordinator and Heads of Faculty;

·         Monitoring pro formas to be used by each department, have been developed for Talking and Listening, and Writing (Presentation and Using the Common Marking Grid);

·         Departments will meet to monitor the implementation of each mode and complete the forms. This will happen at least twice a year;

·         The forms will be submitted to the relevant Head of Faculty;

·         The Literacy Coordinator and Heads of Faculty will meet to produce an evaluation report on the implementation of the Literacy Policy;

·         A copy will be given to each member of staff;

·         Departments should act on points identified in the report where appropriate.

 Departments will set a literacy target and related Action Plan annually. The implementation of these will be monitored and evaluated by Departments at the end of the school year, and then by the Heads of Faculty and the Literacy Co-ordinator. Departments will identify the approach they intend taking. Possible approaches are:

·         sampling work – both pupils’ work and departmental schemes;

·         observation – pupil pursuit and literacy teaching;

·         meetings;

·         pupil interviews;

·         scrutiny of development  plans;

·         encouraging departments to share good practice by exhibiting or exemplifying pupils’ work.

 11.       Meeting the Needs of our Pupils

A. Using Baseline Curriculum-Based Measurement Data (Progress in English

     outcomes)

The Progress in English standardised assessment will be administered in the first term in Yr 8. The outcomes will be shared with parents and staff. Staff will be given guidance on how to interpret the data, and what approach they might adopt to meeting the specific literacy needs of pupils whose scores reveal a difficulty.

 Initially, PIE outcomes for reading (narrative and non-narrative) will be used to identify those children who would benefit most from the Reading Partnership Programme. Subsequently, teacher referrals will also be used to target children at risk of underachievement. At least 3 curriculum-based referrals must be made before a child is enrolled in the programme. Priority will be given to referrals made through the English department.

B.  Differentiation

Our pupils are entitled to our highest expectations and support.  Some will need additional support and others will need to be challenged and extended. Strategies that we can use include:

·         questioning;

·         adjusting the demands of the task;

·         use of additional support;

·         use of group structures;

·         use of resources;

·         making objectives clear;

·         creating an atmosphere where pupils evaluate their own and others’ work.

 C.  Support (Targeted Intervention)

Where teachers feel they have identified a pupil who is experiencing significant literacy difficulties that have not improved despite support given, they will complete a ‘Note of Concern’. They should submit this to the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (Mrs Smye), who will work collaboratively with the Special Educational Needs Teacher (Mrs Phoenix), to assess and address the pupil needs identified.                               

 D. Reading Partnership Programme

The Reading Partnership Programme is a structured intervention programme which aims to:

• target underachieving pupils in KS3 to improve their reading skills;
• train Upper School students to act as Reading Partners.

Each Reading Partner works with a pupil for 10 weeks, giving the pupil 3 x 15 minute sessions per week. This is an individualised reading programme which is highly structured, supplementary to classroom reading and uses a wide variety of reading materials.

The outcomes of the Progress In English assessment are used to identify those pupils who would most benefit from the programme. Parental permission is sought before the pupil begins the programme. A survey-level reading assessment is completed on a child first to determine the optimal level to monitor during tutoring. At the end of the programme, the child's reading level is assessed again to measure improvement.

E.  The Gifted and Talented

We will seek to:

·         identify able pupils;

·         promote ways of structuring learning for able pupils by using learning objectives that provide stretch and challenge;

·         develop a teaching repertoire which supports and challenges able pupils.

F.  English as an Additional Language

Our pupils learning EAL need to hear good examples of spoken English. We will endeavour to support the specific literacy needs of these pupils, seeking support and in-service training from SEELB.

G. SEN

We will teach our pupils with special educational needs appropriately, supporting their learning and providing them with challenges matched to their needs, through using a range of teaching strategies such as guided group work, writing frames and oral activities. We will use the pupil’s IEP (Individual Education Plan) to identify specific areas of need and offer appropriate support.

H. Use of Library

We will encourage the use of the library to help pupils develop good reading and information handling skills. The College Librarian will be invited to attend all in-house training in literacy. ‘The College Library functions as a resource centre for information management and recreation for the whole school.’   (see Library Policy)

 12.       Conclusion

 This policy was compiled through a process of consultation with staff and feedback from Central Management Team. This policy also needs to be in line with other school polices and therefore should be read in conjunction with the following school policies:

• Curriculum Policy
• Special Educational Needs policy
• ICT Policy
• Child Protection Policy
• Library Policy

This Literacy Policy will be:

• Regularly reviewed and updated in consultation with staff, particularly SMT, Heads of Department, Year Heads and SENCO;
• Presented to the Boards of Governors regularly;
• Shared with parents;

·         In line with whole-school policy.

 Literacy: Annual Priority 2010-2011

 Using PIE Outcomes to Identify Literacy Priority 2010-11.

 Each department will:

·         analyse and evaluate PIE outcomes;

·         make an evidence based judgement identifying a subject specific literacy need;

·         set an appropriate literacy target with an accompanying Action Plan;

·         adapt teaching materials in ways that are special to that department’s subject needs;

·         liaise with LitCo;

·         provide evidence of monitoring and evaluation to the Faculty Team.

This policy will be reviewed three years after it has been ratified by the Board of Governors of the College.