Whole school and Disciplinary Literacy at Gateacre

Research shows that people with good literacy skills are more likely to have higher self-esteem, better health, better jobs and higher wages.

Whole school literacy policies and strategies also play a significant role in the delivery of subject specific reading and writing. The revised Word of the Week strategy allows departments to tailor their language focus to the needs of their curriculum, as well as allowing the development of links and connections between their subject disciplinary vocabulary and the growing departmental anthologies. A collection of subject related texts encourage an appreciation of reading around each subject area and the benefit of a wide and varied literary diet.

Alongside the departmental delivery of literacy, our ‘Listen Project’ material provides students with access to a range of spoken word texts that develop links across academic disciplines. The explicit linking of increasingly complex texts aims to scaffold our students’ understanding of how reading informs their engagement with the world and the subjects they study. This conscious attempt to grow all student’s cultural capital is an acknowledgement of the demands of a wide and varied curriculum and the integral role literacy plays in this.

The introduction of Reading for Success, a programme of high-quality texts read by entire year groups, underpins the delivery of all subjects by promoting reading fluency and accuracy. Tying closely to the subject anthologies and expert reading tuition by all staff, our students have access to a wide range of reading materials, encouraging and promoting, not only skilled reading, but enjoyment and engagement with texts across a range of academic disciplines.