1. Fresh Start at The Lancaster School
Tuesday 13th September 2011

2. The ‘long tail’ of literacy underachievement
Nationally
70 % of pupils permanently excluded from school have difficulties in basic literacy skills
(NLT, 2008)
2% of pupils with below NC level 3 reading are likely to gain five A*-C GCSEs
6% of pupils leave Primary School functionally illiterate
Leicester City
2008: 8% of pupils (321 pupils) left Year 6 with reading below NC (Datanet, 2009)
17 Secondary schools= 19 pupils each

3. Pupils with reading age of 9 years and below at Lancaster
The Lancaster Story
Pupils with reading age of 9 years and below at Lancaster
September 2002
Year 7 56
Year 8 69
Year 9 36

4. Teething Trouble March-June 2002
They do this in junior school.’
‘Miss, tell him. He keeps going ‘blah’ when I’m trying to read.’
I don’t want to do this, I’m missing Des Tech.’

5. Solutions and Progress
“I’ve been moved up a set in History!”
“Just have a go. See how many words you can read”
“I used to guess all my spellings-I’m getting better at guessing them now”
“RML is ours-I don’t want other kids doing it”

6. “I used to guess all my spellings and they were always wrong but now when I guess they’re right!”

7. Why choose Fresh Start/RML?
Groups of pupils
Develops language skills
Covers reading, spelling, comprehension, writing
Teaches phoneme-grapheme correspondence
Structured and cumulative
Word-specific knowledge (red words
Age-appropriate texts
Maximum participation
Opportunities for over-learning

8. Moving On Shared results with senior management
Received information re: 2003/04 year 7 cohort
Cost effectiveness calculated: cost for materials - £25 per pupil
Trained 2 English teachers
Assessed the new cohort
Grouped according to need

9. As a Wave 3 intervention, Fresh Start is consistently successful
The Lancaster Model
Fresh Start replaces NC English for approx. 40 Year 7 pupils
Learning Advice and English Department continue to run programme jointly
Delivered regularly by trained teachers
On-going support for TA support
As a Wave 3 intervention, Fresh Start is consistently successful

10. Data
Year
Number of pupils
Average reading age gain (months)
Average spelling gain (months) 35
22.3
7.4 33 18
8.1 36 19
12.8 39
29.6
15.7 65
17.5
14.2 34
21.8

12. Ofsted
‘The Key Stage 3 curriculum has been strengthened for example by allocating additional time for the teaching of English in Year 7 and for literacy support.’ OFSTED (2009)

13. Lancaster 2011 Year 7 56 Year 8 69 Year 9 36 Year 7 2 Year 8 Year 9
September 2002
Pupils with reading age below 9 years
July 2011
Pupils with reading age below 9 years
Year 7 56
Year 8 69
Year 9 36
Year 7 2
Year 8
Year 9