1. Improve Outcomes in Literacy
Working Together to…
Improve Outcomes in Literacy
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Scott Sinclair, Principal Teacher; Aspire Academy
Anywhere Council recognises the Improvement Science Model as a quality improvement programme which supports transformational change. It focuses on strengthening and building practices and services, enabling local practitioners to test, measure, implement and sustain new ways of working to improve outcomes for children, young people, their families and their communities. The Mechanics of Reading project, supporting young people to embed 6 principles of reading across their learning, is just one way in which Anywhere Council have been using the model to raise attainment in Literacy.
Aim: 57 of the 64 3rd Year pupils at Aspire Academy will show a minimum of ‘3 point’ increase in their reading level baseline assessment score, through engagement and participation in ‘quality meachnics of reading’ lessons by June 2017.
Method
Results
Practitioners and young people agreed that they wanted to achieve consistency in how the mechanics of reading were taught, supporting learners to develop transferrable skills across all aspects of their learning. A cause and effect diagram and force field analysis helped them to decide which areas required focus and allowed them to plan to overcome barriers before the project started.
On average, staff are consistently adhering to the ‘quality lesson’ criteria as agreed with practitioners, pupils and project team.
This chart shows an improvement in ‘Pupil Confidence’ using 1 of the key principles of reading.
Process Change
A ‘Learning Mat’ was the key change idea and would support young people to use the 6 principles of reading across their academic subjects. I wanted to see if this would also help to raise the confidence levels of learners, engage them to lead their own learning and ultimately lead to them developing their reading skills.
Conclusions
“It’s great to see that young people have developed their knowledge and confidence and can use these skills in other areas of learning, by selecting which principle is most suitable when decoding texts.” (A Hill, Class Teacher)
“I found the Learning Mat useful for supporting my learning and I can use it in different classes. (S3 Pupil)
Young people were able to improve their confidence, application of skills across their learning and reading capabilities in a 12-week period. 55 of the 64 were able to improve by at least 3 points.
QI methodology is being embedded into practice by practitioners.
The school wanted to support colleagues to work smarter, to share learning and to find out ‘what works’ in Reading and the model gave them a way to do this.
Achievements
Staff are more knowledgeable about implementing changes that result in improvement.
Young people are more engaged and involved in leading their learning.
Project is sustainable and is being spread across the authority.
Scale / Spread
Key Learning Points
Scaled- up: Children’s reading capabilities are being tested in Social Subjects and Sciences departments to ensure they are using their learning as transferrable skills.
Spread: Another local secondary school is now testing the key elements of the project with one 2nd Year class, with a view to spreading it across their S1 – S3.
Spread: The authority wish for the project to be rolled out as a Universal offer of support to schools, over a 3 year period. The project has been adapted for Primary use also.
Parental Engagement – This is difficult to get right first time around. We built on the learning from previous work, however you can’t let it hinder the progress of the project.
Ownership – Practitioners buy-in empowers them to take ownership of the project and helps to support self-evaluation and the intelligent use of data as set out in the National Improvement Framework.
Leadership – Benefits senior school staff in growing leadership capacity at practitioner and pupil level.
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