Aim

At Pedmore High School all teaching staff recognise how important good literacy is for each student’s development and subject leaders ensure that literacy is considered and taught in each area. Good literacy means being able to understand, explore and communicate our thoughts and ideas effectively. We want our students to become enthusiastic readers, inspirational speakers, articulate writers and sensitive listeners. At Pedmore we aim to make progress in all of these areas and literacy is at the very heart of our school curriculum with students having access to a host of opportunities to develop their skills. Embedding literacy into all aspects of curriculum planning ensures that all our students can maximise their potential during their time with us at Pedmore.

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Guided Reading

All students in years seven, eight and nine take part in Guided Reading, an embedded part of the weekly tutorial programme where at least twice a week each tutor will read to the whole class demonstrating excellent reading skills and modelling high quality reading techniques. Students are all encouraged to be attentive listeners but also have their own copy of the text to participate in class reading. These texts are selected from the literary canon or from contemporary prize winning shortlists and all the texts offer the opportunity to develop the students’ vocabulary, expand their cultural capital and develop their love of reading. Student guides are available to examine and explain challenging vocabulary with some comprehension questions to support understanding.

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Sparx Reader

All students in years 7, 8 and 9 have access to Sparx Reader: a reading, comprehension and vocabulary programme that gets all young people reading regularly to help improve their literacy and motivates them to read for pleasure. The programme is tailored to the ability and speed of the individual student, and students are given weekly points targets which can be achieved through quality reading and answering comprehension question. Sparx Reader is linked closely with Sparx Maths, meaning that students have a cohesive homework structure for KS3 across core subjects.

Reading Intervention / Word Gap

Targeted literacy intervention is provided to students wherever possible with the need for intervention being identified promptly when students arrive at school. Students in years seven, eight and nine with a lower reading age are offered weekly intervention sessions during tutor time to improve their fluency and comprehension. Pedmore High School is also working in partnership with Oxford University Press as a Word Gap Partner school giving us access to high quality teaching resources to close the ‘Word Gap’ and improve vocabulary across the school.
 

Literacy through the Curriculum

Although literacy skills are part of the whole school ethos, they are also an integral part of the English curriculum. Each stage of the curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of the students and explicit teaching of vocabulary using knowledge organisers and a wide variety of classroom activities are designed to enhance each student’s vocabulary and secure this vital knowledge enabling them to engage with a variety of challenging texts.

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Accelerated Reader / ILC Reading lessons

One designated reading lesson a week is also built into the KS3 curriculum giving students access to a variety of suitable and varied texts. These lessons allow students to improve their reading ability and ensures that every child in school always has access to suitable and varied reading material. Following the completion of each text, students complete a quiz to gauge understanding and comprehension as well as offer insights into overall reading progress and suggestions for future reading material.

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All students in KS3 and KS4 are also provided with an extensive reading list which is constantly referred to and kept at the back of their exercise book and also available on the school website. The ‘Sixteen before Sixteen’ reading challenge gives students a diverse selection of texts to choose from and completing this challenge ensures students are reading challenging, rewarding and varied texts during their time at Pedmore. During English lessons, students are not only challenged to improve their reading and writing skills, speaking and listening activities are built in to each scheme of work to give students the confidence and knowledge that will support them throughout their school life and future careers.