Literacy at Sandhill View

Literacy: A Whole School Approach

Developing literacy is of utmost importance at Sandhill View Academy and is promoted widely.

We aim to promote high standards of literacy by equipping students with a strong command of the written and spoken word and developing their love of language through reading for enjoyment.

All teachers have responsibility for raising literacy standards in their curriculum areas as we believe that the development of an effective literacy skillset is essential to achievement for our students. As such, all curriculum areas focus on improving literacy within their subject.  This includes developing new subject specific vocabulary, both orally and in writing; refining reading skills, and improving grammatical accuracy. This ensures there is a consistent whole school approach to the way we teach and assess these skills across the school.

Meet Our Literacy Team

We have a dedicated ‘Literacy Team’, with clear roles and responsibilities, who work together to make sure literacy is continually at the top of our whole school improvement agenda.

Mrs Dodd Headteacher	Miss Thompson Head of English	Mrs Patel KS3 English coordinator
Miss Summerside SENDCO	Mrs Jackson LRC/Reading Progress Manager	Mrs Davison Reading Progress Manager

Promoting a Love of Reading

Book Buzz: Each year we subscribe to the Book Buzz programme and provide the gift of a free book to our Year 7 and 8 students. This helps to foster a love of reading in our students as they choose a book that matches their interests.

World Book Day:  We participate in the annual celebration to promote our love of reading. Staff and students participate in literacy focused activities through the school such as reading and writing competitions, literacy quizzes and sharing our favourite stories with one another.

RISE Lessons:  All Year 7 and 8 students receive a weekly reading lesson which we call RISE (Read, Investigate, Succeed and Enjoy). During these lessons, every class will focus on a novel which gives students the opportunity to develop their confidence in reading by practicing reading aloud and using key reading skills such as skimming and scanning to help develop their comprehension of a story.

The LRC: Our newly refurbished Learning Resources Centre has been designed in the style of a university library, with the intention of encouraging students to have the highest aspirations whilst equipping them with study skills to underpin their lifelong learning journey. 

Literacy Fundamentals

Our whole school, consistent approach to teaching literacy helps to ensure no student leaves Sandhill View Academy with a reading age below their chronological age and that literacy is never a barrier to achievement.

We apply this via five consistent approaches.

1. Check & Change! All students write in sentences which contain a capital letter, a full stop and one coherent point. This is the basic expectation and is constantly reinforced in every lesson across the school.

2. Read with a Ruler When reading an extended piece of text, all students follow with a ruler. This ensures we reduce extraneous load by blocking out surrounding text and highlighting only one line at a time.

3. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction Tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary is explicitly taught in all subjects using Frayer and/or PUSH.

4. Marking for High Frequency Errors Staff and students regularly mark for high frequency errors in red pen using standardised marking codes. These include: SP – Spelling error CP – Capital letter error P – Punctuation error GR – Grammatical error

5. Oracy Students speak in full sentences, using standard English. This is insisted upon in every time, in every lesson.