Literacy in Science Developing skills across KS3-KS5 “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!“ “There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.” - Isaac D'Israeli

Aims To inform you about how we have approached literacy within Science at The Brunt’s Academy. To share techniques that we are currently using and trialling. To inform you of the impact we are seeing from the changes.

What made us change? Improving pupils grades (the key focuses were core Science and A/A* for us!) GCSE curriculum changes Student feedback Demands of Ofsted

Ofqual grade criteria extended writing GCSE science Grade A Pupils use scientific and technical knowledge, terminology and conventions appropriately and consistently. Pupils evaluate information systematically to develop arguments and explanations. Grade C Pupils use scientific and technical knowledge, terminology and conventions appropriately. Grade F Pupils use limited scientific and technical knowledge, terminology and conventions.

What has been our focus for literacy over the last two years? Talk for writing (Kagan structures/white boards) Literacy focussed tasks (with level ladders) Classroom focus of literacy (punctuation mats, connective mats, keywords, marking) Feed forward marking to improve literacy skills.

We have also done this for data interpretation Reading data from tables, graphs etc also key.

How has this all our hard work impacted? % pupils predicted to gain A*-C on Core Science in year 10, compared to previous year 40%. WE GAINED 65%, WITH RETAKES IN THE SUMMER WE HOPE TO GET CLOSER TO 71% A*-A went down (with national), so we need to look at this again.

What are we trialling or starting to embed; Class share in the reading or in small groups (using your TAs). Text is on a slide so that students and teacher can look at this together (as a class, small group) Specialist vocabulary will have been taught before reading and is highlighted in the text or pupils annotate as part of the task (keywords on the board/wall) Features of the text are highlighted/discussed – type, purpose, audience, voice, language (this helps pupils understand different styles of text).

Skimming Read through a piece of text to gather ideas i.e. ask students to skim a piece text and pose the question ‘what is today’s lesson about’. Scanning Scan the text for keywords (what are the keywords in the text, what do they mean, are there any that you don’t know, how can we find out) Summarising After reading a piece of text ask students to write 3 bullet points about the information or produce a mind map of the key points. Paragraphs Ask students to write one sentence to summarise a paragraph. Ask students to write a title for each paragraph in a piece of text (summary title) Reconstructing Have a piece of text cut up into sections – group work to sort it out into the correct order. Expert groups Each member of a group has a different part of the text – they have to read it and then describe and explain to the others what it is about and together they piece together the ‘story’.

Can you identify the key points?

Information exchange Groups of 4 (number 1-4) Read the paragraph, give it a heading Summarise your paragraph to one sentence Stand up feedback to your team, decide on what the main point (s) of this text is.

What have we done with these tasks/ideas/ways of teaching? Year 7, 8 all SOL have at least one reading for a purpose task. We are now ensuring all GCSE SOL have a reading for a purpose task (increasing complexity from KS3)

Aims To inform you about how we have approached literacy within Science at The Brunt’s Academy. To share techniques that we are currently using and trialling. To inform you of the impact we are seeing from the changes.