Literacy
At the B.O.S. we endeavour to raise the literacy achievement of all students through the focused teaching and learning of oral language, reading and writing. To this end, children are regularly assessed in order to find their ‘best fit’ level; information which is then used by the teacher to plan stimulating lessons that develop each student’s individual needs effectively.
Our teachers have high expectations of their students and, accordingly, create goal directed environments and programmes in which students are motivated to become independent readers and writers.
The process of becoming literate is intensely complex. The literacy learner has to develop a knowledge base, a repertoire of strategies and an awareness of how to put their knowledge and strategies together.
Our teachers realise the importance of teaching the ability to decode and encode written forms of language (the skills required to read and write letters, words, and text), and also the knowledge to enable our students to obtain meaning when reading and writing, and the ability to respond as critical thinkers when doing both. All these items together are presented in programmes that develop reading and writing with meaning and purpose.
Although the England and Wales Primary Strategy for Literacy is used as the core framework for the teaching of literacy within our school, teachers also use their valuable experience of other curricula, together with numerous resources, to offer the children what we believe is the most effective English Literacy curriculum in the city.