Northmuir Primary School – A strategic approach to ...



Northmuir Primary School – A strategic approach to developing Literacy and English across the school

HEADTEACHER: This is Northmuir Primary School set in the heart of the Angus Glens. The school is a fairly large school. We have three hundred and forty pupils in the primary school and another sixty in the pre-school. Thinking about the strategic approach that we take to developing children’s skills in Literacy and English I like to think of it as a timber framed house. In the management team and working with the staff we have produced an outline, a framework for teachers to work to.

HEADTEACHER: So within that framework we have developed programmes which help teachers to understand what children need to learn progressively which run right from nursery through to P7. So we have produced programmes for things like spelling, we have an active spelling programme in the school. We have a handwriting programme. We have a programme for developing children’s research skills so looking at finding and using information and being able to take notes.

HEADTEACHER: We know what has to be taught at each stage in the school without putting a ceiling on anything but that helps teachers to be really confident in what they’re teaching. And then built onto that framework is all the creativity that teachers put into creating their lessons. So we use real text for developing children’s skills, beginning right in the nursery, in the pre-school. So here we have lots of play opportunities for children.

HEADTEACHER: Play activities that are based around books. We’re developing children’s literacy skills in their writing, in their listening and talking, both indoors and outdoors.

SENIOR EARLY YEARS PRACTITIONER: In the nursery class we like to think that everything that we do comes from the children, the interests that come from the children, are literacy based. There’s always an opportunity for the children to develop their literacy skills and knowledge.

SPEAKER 3: Want me to read the blurb so you know a wee bit about what it’s going to be? [Yeah]

SENIOR EARLY YEARS PRACTITIONER: Library time happens every week in the nursery class and the children go into a small group and what they do is they have a story initially. They talk about the book and the different parts of the book and they talk about their likes and dislikes of the story that they’ve just heard. They also get to return a book each week and share with the group whether they’ve enjoyed the story or not. And it’s really quite interesting because the other children quite often use their peers’ comments as a reference as to whether they may or may not want to choose that book.

TEACHER: In P1 the way we use the Book Bugs and the Real Books is we use it to invade the keys to literacy, so we use it, for example Sally Setting, when we’re using Sally Setting we’ll be looking at all the different locations that are in the book and then using that to develop their skills by sequencing the story. We also use the big books. What we do is copy out the words so the children can then actually place the words on the actual words in the book and that way they can build up from being able to read the word to reading a sentence.

TEACHER: And we also teach punctuation that way so they can learn speech marks by putting them the book.

HEADTEACHER: The impact of our planning and strategic approach on the children is that we’re seeing children who are literate, who are able to read and write by the time they leave primary seven, most of our children have reached a secure standard in the second level of Curriculum for Excellence. We’re seeing very high quality writing particularly in the upper end of the school once the children have developed a lot of skills, and a big focus on extended writing which our children can do well using lots of imagery and really well structured pieces of work.

HEADTEACHER: I would say we have highly motivated pupils. They love the context that teachers have created and these really engage the children. So for example I’ve seen children who are just, just can’t wait to write which is lovely to see because they’re excited about writing, they’re excited about developing their own work.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download