At De Lisle we are committed to supporting our students in developing excellent standards of literacy. Through a range of initiatives, and across the curriculum, we focus on developing key skills related to reading, listening, speaking and writing. Students are provided with specific feedback on their literacy across the College and are provided with time to action any targets within their feedback.We aim to ensure students develop literacy skills that will enable them to negotiate the demands of their future personal and professional lives.

Tutor Time

Each year group has a form period, once a week, dedicated to literacy and numeracy activities, where they follow a scheme of work led by the tutor and record this in their literacy books.

Reading Wednesdays

The whole school, students AND staff, all read for pleasure on a Wednesday tutor time and this has been very successful in helping reignite a love of reading in some of our young people, particularly the boys.

Additional Support

A range of activities are used to assist students who may require additional support. These include KS3 booster lessons focussing on literacy skills and the provision of additional reading time with older students in our reading partnership scheme.   There are alternative/additional programmes provided for students who have specific educational needs.

How Can I Support My Child At Home With Their Literacy Skills

You can help your child at home by encouraging them to read regularly and ensure that the following six rules are always applied in their writing:

Always spell subject keywords correctly;
Use capital letters for proper nouns;
Separate ideas into clear paragraphs;
Use the correct spellings for homophones (EG: there / their / they’re)
Use question marks at the end of questions;
Use full stops to close sentences where appropriate.

Word of the Week

Each week De Lisle will have a new word of the week (WOW). These are words that are commonly misspelt by students. Students will look at the type of word (noun, adjective, verb…) it is and the meaning. Additionally, they will look at synonyms (alternative words of the same meaning) of this WOW and some examples of sentences that include the WOW. Students will look at these in school but I would strongly encourage parents to share these PowerPoints again with their children to further reinforce the work done in class.

Enjoy your WOW!

Jo Laidler

Literacy Coordinator