Closing the language gap at St Josephs RC High School Mrs Carolyn - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Closing the language gap at St Joseph’s RC High School

Mrs Carolyn Wood, St Joseph’s RC High School Head of English & Whole School Literacy Lead Spotlight from WE’s ‘Words for all’ programme with Bolton Learning Partnership, shared at GL Assessment webinar

www.wholeeducation.org/spotlights

Intent: aims and priorities.

Why did we join ‘Words for All’?

• Whole school priority – to secure a progress 8 score in line with or above the

national average. Priority groups to target were PPG students and HPA boys.

• Literacy needed to be used a vehicle to pave the way for sustainable change.

To achieve this, it was essential to grow the presence of literacy across the

• curriculum. This would then allow literacy to become a tool to enhance culture

capital.

• Imperative that students could contextualise their learning.
• Closing the vocabulary gap and improving outcomes in written components

were key areas to address.

Implementation: How did I begin to achieve my intent?

• Create a ‘buy in’ from staff by visualising the

advantages of literacy for all subject areas.

• Inspired and enlightened teachers in CPD to

see the benefits of a consistent, holistic approach to literacy.

• Create bespoke strategies for subject areas

to assist in increasing outcomes.

• Design and create a ‘tool kit’ of strategies for

staff to embed within schemes of learning.

• Encourage explicit vocabulary teaching -

decoding the origins of words to enhance examination performance.

Implementation: improving comprehension.

Understanding the term is the first step to understanding the skill. I improved comprehension, simplifying exam terminology to create a greater impact in assessment.

• Wall displays
• Classroom resources (laminated cards)
• Front of exercise books/ student planners
• During lessons

Creating bespoke resources for subject areas has been a successful strategy in decoding exam terminology. Working closely with more vocational subjects helped to improve extended responses more rapidly which led to measurable gains quite quickly.

Impact: evidencing improved

• utcomes.

PE example (before)

• Lack of discourse markers
• Under-developed explanations/bullet

points

• Unfocused, lack of clarity

PE example (after)

• More developed/ clearer

explanations

• Discourse markers

Impact: evidencing improved

• utcomes.

Y10 DD2 Y10 DD3 Impact

PE Progress 8

• 1.66
• 0.69

+0.97

Boys

• 2.17
• 1.0

+1.17

PPG

• 1.85
• 0.87

+0.98

9-5% 28.07% 40.0%

+11.93%

9-4% 42.11% 67.27%

+25.16%

Moving forward in year two…

Tier one:

• Projected similar gains in D&T,

ICT, and Drama.

• Create triads for sharing good

practice with he aim of reaching Science, Maths, Humanities and MFL.

• Evaluate impact of decoding

methods.

Tier two:

• NGRTs highlighted the need to move

from words to reading.

• Results highlighted two sets of

intervention needed. Decoding issues in higher ability students were being masked by their ability to comprehend large passages. These students often found word problems in maths an issue.

• Other students could decode very well,

but reading comprehension was an

• issue. This would limit outcomes in

subjects that are largely text based e.g. humanities.