Meaningful contexts for learning in the area of Literacy are used to develop knowledge, skills and behaviours that will enable all students to actively contribute to the world in which they live. Increasing teacher capacity through ongoing professional learning, improves teacher knowledge of content and pedagogy, which adds value to student outcomes.
The importance of knowing the students and their context is emphasised and starting points are established for each child in order to differentiate learning. This is particularly important for our EAL learners, who benefit greatly from explicit focussed teaching as well as from a strategic approach encompassing teaching, reinforcing and revisiting. Ongoing assessment and monitoring tracks individual student progress and informs teaching so that the next stage of learning can be planned. Additional support is provided for students identified as performing below expected level and ILPs are used to track progress and identify future learning goals.
Resources, including print based and digital, are carefully selected to promote engagement and to stimulate thinking. Learning is scaffolded and risk-taking is encouraged. High but realistic expectations are set for all students and constructive feedback enables students to take responsibility for their own learning.
A high percentage of school staff has undertaken Reading to Learn Professional Development opportunities whereby the key ideas and understandings from a text are broken down to the word and sentence level. Links are made between reading and writing with oral language development underpinning these key ideas.