We are committed to raising the standards of literacy of all of our students, so that they succeed in their exams and beyond and are prepared for the demands of the wider world.

Literacy is an important element within the English curriculum, but it is not the same as the English curriculum. The English curriculum extends beyond literacy and literacy extends beyond English. Literacy skills are an important element of all subjects and schools should have detailed policies relating to literacy across the whole school.

We are proud to say that every teacher is a teacher of literacy.

During Key Stage 3 (KS3) our students follow a tailored learning pathway in English which involves the following literacy initiatives:

• Software based Lexia phonics scheme for students working at level 3 or below (see below attachment). This intervention ensures that they are secondary ready for the demands of the curriculum for all subjects
• Ruth Miskin phonics scheme for students working at level 2 or below
• Accelerated Reading, a reading scheme that matches books to ability (see below attachment)
• Targeted EAL intervention
• Reading homework is regularly set
   

Whole school literacy:

• Intensive after school catch-up programme to accelerate our students’ progress (refer to Catch-up Funding document)
• A competitive literacy quiz is delivered on a fortnightly basis by all members of staff
• Literacy has a high profile in the school and there are displays which are regularly updated to correspond with the literacy quiz
• The Academy’s highly qualified Paraprofessionals provide classroom based literacy support and intervention
• The library acts as a hub for learning and runs competitions, helped by the school librarians
• Students are encouraged in all subjects to use formal spoken and written English in the correct context
• A literacy marking code is consistently used in all subjects
• Literacy strategies are employed in all subjects
• Students create pieces of extended writing in all subjects which are jointly moderated by the subject leader, the literacy coordinator and the EAL leader
• All teachers know the reading ages of their students
• A Spelling Bee help our students to know the key words in all subjects