Literacy
At The Bromfords School, we understand that literacy is a keystone on which all other knowledge is built. We know we have a problem with reading, which is not exclusive to our school community, but one that we are determined to tackle together. We all need to play our part. Research tells us that children should be read to up to the age of 16 year, to become confident, effective readers and interpreters of knowledge. Reading at home regularly is an important component of fixing the foundations.
We guarantee an education and intervention plan that is tailored to your child’s individual needs. We use a triage system in year 7 which includes the Hackney Literary Intervention Toolkit baseline assessment, so that we know who needs additional support within the first few weeks. Once students have their reading testing too, we can than identify the 20% - 30% of students who would benefit from additional literacy support. The packages are determined by how much lower their reading age is compared to their actual age. Once they have been triaged to the Hackney LIT intervention, this involves them spending an additional four hours a fortnight which is pure literacy. The data suggests an uplift in reading age by an average of +3yrs per student.
Other interventions may involve the Reading Leaders programme, where older students with more experience support students with their fluency. It may involve more intensive twice weekly reading interventions to check for their ability to comprehend, using a computer-based system called Reading Wise. For those requiring significant support, we have the library-based Reading Wise intervention, which is more intensive and helps those readers who struggle with decoding individual words. This involves coming to the library once a day during a non-core subject and using the Reading Wise software, which has shown impressive results for both decoding and comprehension.
We also believe that those students who are at or above their chronological reading age need to be stretched and challenged by reading texts that they would not normally access. Reading Masterclasses for years 10 & 11 focus on non-fiction texts, and using reciprocal reading to challenge them through questioning to build readers who are critical thinkers. The Tutor Time Reading intervention means that for 30mins once a week, tutors will read to their students from an appropriate text. Once again, using reciprocal reading techniques and questioning, they will be challenged to think more deeply about a text, which will help them to access the whole curriculum in a more critical way.
It is essential that we work together as a school and parent community united in this aim to make The Bromfords School a place where children can flourish in school, and become critical and analytical thinkers outside of school. This is a team effort on all our parts, and one that we are intent on winning.
For further details of our English Curriculum please click here
For Literacy Guidance from Essex County Council please click here
