In session 2018-19, staff at Denny Early Learning and Childcare Centre took part in valuable professional learning provided by Eveline Chan, trainee Education Psychologist with Falkirk Children’s Services Educational Psychology team.  As head of centre, Gill Torrance instigated this liaison for colleagues to support their development of foundational literacy through play with their 3-5 year old children.

Eveline worked with staff on one in-service day and 4 workshops at the end of the working day. These workshops gave staff an opportunity to develop their knowledge of theory around the various aspects of literacy and included a range of activities which helped them reflect deeply on their existing practice. The early years officers captured existing literacy practice which was working well, and also identified areas for development. They recognised how this new work also helped them build in the principles of 5 to Thrive and elements of nurture training. They then decided to create a Practice Guideline booklet to capture their learning, and this has become a highly practical tool which helps staff reflect in and on their practice.

Julie Milne is one of the early years officers who took advantage of this professional learning, and feels it has impacted powerfully on her understanding about foundational literacy:

Click on the image of Julie’s reflections to listen to the Vox Pop created by Gill, Julie & Fiona Gorrie, trainee Education Psychologist.

The Practice Guide has been issued to all staff working in the 3-5 room, to help them use the theories and knowledge they have acquired within their everyday practice. Staff worked together to create a list of ways in which they routinely develop phonological awareness, concept of print, fine motor skills and oral language through play. Click here to see the Practice Guidelines with its lists of ways in which staff feel this happens.

Gill observed that: “It was evident that staff confidence was raised after the workshops. Eveline captured everyone’s imagination, and had the data which inspired staff to develop their understanding and capacity.”

Here are a selection of quotes from staff members involved:

“If anything I would say we feel more confident as you have more knowledge”

” I think it gave you more of an insight into what the children were learning.”

Staff shared their development work at an open event for other early years practitioners, and Gill also presented to colleagues in the ELCC Manager’s Forum. The photos below show a slide which captures the workshop content and feedback from colleagues attending the open event.

Gill, Julie and colleagues are currently exploring ways to gather data about the impact of this work on children. They have created new observation and tracking tools and are in the early stages of gathering evidence of progress in each area of literacy. Initial observations of oral story telling demonstrate high levels of engagement by children and Julie noted that “Today a group of boys were transfixed by a scary story – for ten minutes. It was a spur of the moment opportunity to establish how much their active listening and engagement had progressed”. Julie has just begun to explore the tracking of phonological awareness – watch this space to see how this develops.

Yvonne McBlain & Yvonne Manning, Falkirk Children’s Services literacy development team members attended the latest Education Scotland National Literacy Network meeting on 15th March 2019 (note aims in slide below & click here to view the full presentation for the network meeting day). Representatives from each Regional Collaborative were seated together for the first time, meaning that “the Yvonnes” were able to work with colleagues from our neighbouring authorities as well as those from the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

Notes from agenda items:

Education Scotland Update on literacy team: Jane Renton assistant director Education Scotland introduced the new national literacy team: Paul Morgan & Helen Fairlie, Senior Education Officers, Literacy and English, Kirsten Hume, Lesley Lennon and Julie Jamieson, Education Scotland Literacy and English Development Officers.

The team provided a guided tour of the new “One stop shop” Literacy for All hub in Glow –  “the Yvonnes” will send all establishments the link to this hub once it is officially launched in August-September 2019.

The Vibrant Libraries, Thriving Schools 5 year national strategy was shared – see slide above for strategy.  A Glow one-stop shop Librarian Hub – is also under construction.

Applications for the Scottish Education Awards 2019 have come from all sectors and will be judged in April/May and celebrated at the awards ceremony in June. The best applications embedded literacy well throughout the curriculum, and shared established practice which evidenced impact on learners.

There have been 18 applications to run seminars in raising attainment in literacy at the Scottish Learning Festival in September 2019. The focus this year is on achieving excellence and equity through:

• Creating a culture of empowerment that enables everyone involved in the system to contribute to the agenda of improvement
• The importance of wellbeing in developing a healthy, successful learning community.

The latest ACER National Report for 2017/18 – including SNSA summary overview is available by clicking here

The QAMSO literacy programme continues to develop and evolve – the  second round of moderation events will take place in May/June and will look at achievement of a level in reading/writing/listening and talking from early to fourth levels.

Click on the following links to view new literacy Resources which were highlighted :

• National Literacy Network  (Glow log in required)
• National Improvement Hub reading for pleasure/creating a reading culture resource.
• Introduction to inclusive education professional learning resource
• Addressing Dyslexia resources
• Link to Education Scotland Newsletter subscription

Jennifer Harwood School Communities Officer,  Scottish Book Trust described the new Bookbug app and shared First Minister’s Reading Challenge resources (Submissions due by 1st May 2019 – new submission advice is available via “Your Reading Journey through Film” animation) – a new app is also being developed with pupils for secondary schools), a HGIOS 4 resource, and author live videos are available through scottishbooktrust.com

Professor Sue Ellis, University of Strathclyde then asked us to consider What should we think about for equitable literacy teaching? What kinds of teacher knowledge, skills, actions and guidance are required to create a truly inclusive literacy curriculum, one that challenges everyone whilst narrowing the gap between rich and poor.  Click here to read more.

Each RIC group had time to explore how they support planning and progression of literacy – “the Yvonnes” shared our Falkirk Literacy and English Progression Pathways.

In the afternoon, we heard from Mary Ann Hagan, HMI – click here to read her update on Literacy within the Scottish Attainment Challenge. Then David Swinney, Subject Implementation Manager, Scottish Qualifications Agency, provided an update and spoke about SQA English NQ resources & SQA update subscription sign up

Professor Sue Ellis, University of Strathclyde, addressed the Education Scotland National Literacy Network audience with a seminar entitled “What should we think about for equitable literacy teaching? Click here to find out more about Sue & her research, and here to see her presentation. Yvonne McBlain has summarised her key points below:

Why is Literacy teaching so hard to get right? Two problematic areas – each with implications:
• Literacy is a social practice and reading is a habit of mind and language, not just autonomous knowledge and skills
• In progressing learning, teachers work to a broad horizon, not a linear track so pathways to progression vary – children will get there in different ways.

Literacy as a social practice:

• Literacy and numeracy – all learning – is shaped by families and communities
• What we learn depends on what we think something is for – is it about pleasure & relaxation, work, or just irrelevant?
• How we engage depends on how familiar or unfamiliar something appears
• How quickly we ‘learn’ depends on how we engage & on how well the differences between the familiar and unfamiliar are bridged – this is intellectual, social & emotional
• Schools make assumptions and often need stronger and more careful bridge-building
• For many children from low literacy backgrounds school is their main literacy experience: they learn what we teach.
• So what do we teach? Is reading about pleasure & relaxation? About ‘having a go and being
  adventurous?’ About making different meanings & thinking new thoughts? About connecting reading to life? Or is it about worksheets & getting it right? Reading texts only if you know all the words and the sounds? Does the way we teach reading define & grade, or does it create friendships & laughter?
• Schools can make assumptions and can also skew the focus (Ellis 2018)

Language as a habit of mind/ the pedagogy of poverty

Sue suggested that some phonetic approaches might present literacy/reading as a right/wrong or isolated and disconnected activity which lacks relevance and seems confusing to children. She encouraged consideration of teaching approaches which help children “think across the text”.  Sue described how important being read to was, and advocated the use of good picture books (particularly with early readers), listening and talking about texts and reading beyond the current capability of the child.

Sue quoted Martin Haberman:

“Before we can make workers, we must first make people, but people are not made – they are conserved and grown” 

This quote fits well with Sue/Strathclyde University development of the “3 domain model” – to help educators recognise the interdependence of each domain, and to demonstrate that focusing on any one alone in our teaching of literacy is not enough.

“The pedagogy of poverty does not work. Youngsters achieve neither a minimum level of life skills nor what they are capable of learning. The classroom atmosphere created by constant teacher direction and student compliance seethes with passive resentment that sometimes bubbles up into overt resistance. Teachers burn out because of the emotional and physical energy that they must expend to maintain their authority every hour of everyday.”

What intrinsic messages does our current curriculum send about literacy – might we have overlooked negative messages for pupils which do not fit their cultural context? Have we considered how to bridge the intellectual, social and emotional domains for pupils? Are we using the flexibility of Curriculum for Excellence to reflect upon and choose the best literacy approaches for our pupils?

Sue powerfully promoted reading to secondary pupils daily also – particularly so that they become familiar with the different types and conventions of each subject’s texts and social practices.

Would adopting a less generic literacy approach across secondary departments strengthen pupil understanding of literacy as a social practice which is essential to all aspects of their lives now and in the future regardless of the discipline they opt to follow?

“There is no “one” literacy but many disciplinary literacies.” (Ellis 2018)

How to effectively bridge between life and school?

1. Values around books & reading – beliefs about why we read; ideas of what’s reading about.
2. Show don’t tell: spaces to learn that books are relaxing, social, good fun.
3. Use what children know about the world- the kinds of knowledge they have to bring, and ensure the bookstock embraces it, attend to how it makes them feel
4. Knowledge/skills and experiences for reading: the ‘reading scheme’ is not enough!

Sue challenged current practice by exploring the ethics of differentiation, including the use of broad banding or setting pupils for literacy. If the pathway to impact is best coming from (or being bridged by) the cultural and personal domains, then we should not talk/think about able/less able readers – but about experienced and inexperienced readers. She agreed that data is needed to inform the most valuable interventions, but proposed careful consideration and “problematization” of what sort might be best – proposing that SNSA data is valuable when combined with teacher judgement and other evidence to inform the best next steps for learners.

Sue then asked us to question how we use this data – to what extent does it actually predict future achievements? She emphasised that pupil progress is not linear & shared research which suggests that teachers tend to teach to predictions – thereby imposing a ceiling on pupils’ learning. The slide above shows the percentage of pupils (England) whose test scores accurately reflected actual future achievements! Across all levels, 91% of pupils under or over-shot their predicted attainment score. (Becky Allen: Datalab) Sue expressed doubts about the predictive capacity of testing, suggesting that longer term studies are required but in the meantime, we should strive to do no further harm – but take time to consider current policy and practice regarding setting, streaming, grouping and whether traditional differentiation actually limits and constrains rather than supports and helps learners grow.

Returning to the 3 domains, Sue concluded with the bullet list in the slide below.

On 26th February 2019, staff and pupils at Carron PS held their second highly successful “Read around the camp fire” event. Yvonne McBlain thoroughly enjoyed popping in and being part of this rather magical experience.

For pupils, the evening consisted of coming back to school in the dark and getting comfy around their very own camp fire with their classmates while being read to by their teacher. As can be seen from the photos, pupils snuggled, reclined and were mesmerised by the tales told – teachers modelling excellent story-telling and thoroughly engaging their audience.

For parents, there was an initial information session sharing the educational reasons for hosting this kind of event – enabling them to understand how it assists the school’s ongoing aim to improve pupils reading skills. Primary 7 class teachers Kayleigh Docherty and Linsey Archibald led this session, explaining how their initiative was inspired by the research findings of Sue Ellis – that encouraging children to develop a love of reading was key to closing the attainment gap. Read more about this research by clicking here.

The journey towards encouraging this love of reading has so far included a Harry Potter night with themed activities, being shortlisted for an award for their First Minister’s Reading Challenge video (click here to view), and generally inspiring pupils who previously were disinterested in reading to become passionate readers who love even the sight of new books!

From the pupil consultation which they ensured was part of this development process, Kayleigh and Linsey increased the variety and number of books available to pupils, as well as building more dedicated reading time into their curriculum. They worked with our service librarian and Learning Resource Service to create library areas in each classroom and instigated a reading buddies programme across the school. There is now a very successful and popular Tuesday lunchtime reading club which pupils think is “so much fun”, in addition to the numerous events planned across the school year to encourage and celebrate reading.

Linsey and Kayleigh shared the results of their pupil/parent survey to demonstrate their impact on enjoyment of reading – 75% of pupils reported an improvement of school encouragement to read, there was a 13% increase in the amount of reading time by pupils each day, and 69% of parents feel their child enjoys reading at home – this represents a 14% increase from last session. Despite all of this, Linsey and Kayleigh feel they still have lots they would like to do including the creation of indoor and outdoor spaces to read, and a community library based in their school. There are also plans for further work with our service librarian, a new China reading challenge, book swap shops, quizzes and other fun events.

Following this presentation, parents moved outdoors to join their children for the reading around the camp fire – collecting hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows en route! The children were obviously engrossed in the stories being read to them, and Yvonne thoroughly enjoyed wandering between  camp fires catching snippets of stories and absorbing the unusually buzzing atmosphere of a busy school playground at night.