Literacy

At Eggar’s School, we believe that literacy is more important than ever. For students to be successful every child needs basic literacy skills: the ability to read, write and speak with confidence. All staff demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of literacy. Every teacher is a teacher of literacy.

When joining the school, KS2 data is used to get an initial idea of the student’s abilities on entry. Additionally, we assess all Year 7 and Year 8 students for reading at the start and end of the school year, using this data to identify gaps in learning and areas of challenge, and to monitor students whose reading age is below their chronological age.

All Year 7 students engage with a programme called ‘Reading Plus’, designed to build confidence in reading fluency and comprehension at an appropriate level of challenge for their ability. We also plan bespoke interventions to support accelerated progress in reading, both in person with specialists from our SEND team and online with ‘Reading Plus’  across KS3.

Reading, writing, speaking and listening are all taught specifically throughout the English curriculum in Years 7-11. Writing in sentences and paragraphs, spelling, grammar and punctuation are all part of the Key Stage 4 examination syllabus and mark schemes. Students are also assessed on their speaking and listening skills for the spoken component of their English Language GCSE in Key Stage 4.

Eggar’s Reads is our tutor time reading programme, where every child from Years 7-11 will read with their tutor as part of a shared reading experience. The aim of Eggar’s Reads is to promote a love of reading, whilst also ensuring that every child is exposed to a range of diverse and challenging texts throughout their time in school.

We also subscribe to the Hampshire Library Book Services which provides students to ability to download a range of books, magazines and newspapers.

https://soraapp.com/library/hampshiresls

Please also find links to our half termly reading newsletters where you will find reading recommendations that we hope your child will enjoy.

Numeracy

Improved levels of numeracy for all students continue to be a school improvement priority.  We all consider ourselves to be teachers of fundamental numeracy skills in every subject area.

Multiplication, addition, estimation, subtraction, division, algebra, charts and graphs are all taught specifically throughout the mathematics curriculum in Years 7 – 11.  Numeracy methods such as accurate use of decimal places and a calculator, doubling and halving, equivalences, partitioning, inverse multiplication, using factors and brackets as well as statistical charts are all part of the Key Stage 4 examination syllabus’ and mark schemes. When joining the school, students’ Key Stage 2 data supports our arrangements for teaching at the appropriate level of understanding, knowledge and skill development.  Additionally students are continually assessed for their progress and maths ability groups may be altered. In Key Stage 3 (Years 7 and 8) students who require small group support to rapidly improve their understanding and skills receive it.

Every lesson has a retrieval based starter activity, targeting fundamental numeracy and algebraic skills to help support the students progress towards mastering more complex mathematical concepts.  Students that are identified as needing additional practice and support also have their homework on Sparx maths adjusted to help increase the frequency of numeracy based topics.

We know that numeracy is one of the key features to success in future education and employment, therefore we place particular emphasis on teaching and assessing numeracy skills.