At Flegg High Ormiston Academy we believe that literacy is fundamental to our pupils becoming, creative, inspired and ambitious young people. We recognise literacy’s value in empowering young people to think and learn independently and how this supports the maintenance and development of self-esteem. Development of students’ vocabulary through oracy and reading supports them to express themselves clearly and with determination. Reading for pleasure underpins cognitive development and allows our students to reach their full potential.
Talk is our main method of communication as human beings and it is fundamental to our development. We hold high standards for the oral responses expected of our students and in all areas of the curriculum they will be expected to “speak like a scholar”. This is underpinned through our “Oracy Non Negotiables” which require all in class responses to be: in full sentence; in Standard English and use academic, subject specific language. We also recognise that students learn through talk as well as express themselves using it. At the academy regular opportunities are given for pupils to use talk to develop and clarify ideas; structure and develop a discussion; listening for a specific purpose and evaluate and analyse.
Reading is a skill that is not just developed through the English department but underpins learning across the curriculum. Students access a range of texts which provide ambitious opportunities for them to develop subject knowledge and cultural capital in all lessons. Where necessary, reading is scaffolded to ensure that all of our pupils have the same opportunities and access reading interventions appropriate for their stage to close gaps between them and their peers. We promote the pleasure in reading through a range of extracurricular opportunities but also through our library. All students have access to the library and Year 7-9 receive regular library lessons. This time does not only allow for them to develop reading through choosing and renewing books but also to participate in guided, group reading of seminal young adult texts.
We have high expectations of the standards of writing we expect from our young people. Lessons have a Focus 15 in which students are expected to work independently on a task, in the majority of subjects this task will be written. To ensure that the value of classwork as revision aids is maximised, we expect students to present their work clearly and neatly and have clear presentation guidelines for our students. All notes are expected to be written in full sentences with whole class definitions. For extended pieces of writing, modelling is used, as appropriate, to ensure that students are aware of the standard, structure and tone of writing and checklists are employed as success criteria so that pupils are scaffolded with their writing.
Live marking will be used to correct errors of literacy. Teachers will use the attached codes (appendix 1) to point out literacy errors within a piece of work and students will reflect and correct these in lesson. Wider feedback will be offered in a range of ways as outlined in our feedback policy.
Marking for Literacy Codes
Sp: Error in Spelling
Cap: Error in Capitalisation
A: Missing or Misused apostrophe
P: Missing or Misused punctuation
^ : Missing word
//: Error in paragraphing
T: Incorrect/change of tense
? : Needs rewriting for sense