Our Vision
Abbey Multi-Academy Trust is proud to be a ‘talk rich trust’, where every child’s voice is valued. We are committed to developing the vital communication skills of all of our young people so that they are supported and empowered to become the confident, articulate and globally minded citizens of the future. We are proud to be developing a culture of fluent, proficient communication within our academies, which has innovative teaching and learning at the heart of its philosophy- to work in partnership to educate, nurture and empower.
Writing, reading and oracy development
Our aims are:
- To ensure high standards of writing, oracy and reading are raised throughout all key phases and across all subject areas
- To embed writing, oracy and reading skills across all subject areas
- To have a shared language for oracy
- To empower our young people to use language confidently and with purpose in a range of contexts, both spoken and written
- To engage all young people in the enjoyment of reading for pleasure, engaging them in high quality material and stimuli which will capture their imaginations and foster a life-long love for reading
- To provide a range of intervention strategies that begin with quality first teaching and are targeted to support our young people to attain and surpass national benchmarks
Responsibilities
For pupils:
- To recognise strengths and areas for development in their own oral and written communication and to apply a range of strategies to further develop their communication skills
- To transfer oracy, reading and writing skills across different subjects and to deploy skills efficiently beyond the classroom
- To always proof read and edit written work and respond to any feedback given to make progress
For parents and carers:
- To actively support the Trust’s writing, oracy and reading support and interventions, understanding the importance of these skills for lifelong learning
- To support their child by reading and discussing learning each day
- To actively support reading at home through various mediums, including reading books, magazines, newspapers, recipes and other forms of extended writing
For teachers, teaching assistants and pastoral staff:
- To provide a role model to consistently demonstrate high standards or oracy
- To ensure all classrooms are talk rich and provide explicit teaching of key writing, oracy and reading skills
- To follow the whole school literacy marking policy and provide opportunities for pupils to respond to areas for development
- To explicitly plan for highly effective oracy, reading and writing strategies in line with pupils’ needs through use of the SSIPs
- To fully support academy-wide reading initiatives
- To be fully committed to raising writing, oracy and reading skills at all levels of pupil attainment
For the English department
- To provide models of best practice, advice and training to colleagues so that they are able to confidently teach the literacy skills pertinent to their subject area and support the academy/Trust ambition
For subject leaders
- To ensure that all curriculum planning has explicit reference to the knowledge and/ or skills needed for pupils to acquire writing, oracy and reading skills
- To ensure that challenging tier 3 and tier 2 wording is evident in curriculum planning and that these are made explicit to students as appropriate
- To routinely evaluate the impact of writing, oracy and reading strategies on all pupils’ progress through formal and non-formal QA (including lesson observations, climate checks, work reviews and SSIP scrutiny) and provide training and interventions where needed
Senior Leadership Team
- To actively promote writing, oracy and reading, ensuring that the needs of all pupils are met
- To ensure that the most innovative and cutting-edge practice is embedded into all T&L provision
- To ensure that monitoring and intervention programmes for writing, oracy and reading are rigorous to minimise underachievement and maximise standards
- To ensure that the intent, implementation and impact of the curriculum allows all students to make excellent progress with their writing, oracy and reading skills
- To ensure that opportunities for monitoring writing, oracy and reading targets are embedded within SEFs and the academy action plan
- To ensure that all pupils sit nationally recognised reading age tests and that this data is effectively used by all teachers within the academy to plan effectively for pupils to make progress with their reading
- To provide research based, innovative CPD for all stakeholders based on raising standards of writing, oracy and reading for all students
Governors/ Trustees
- To support the implementation and development of the Trust’s drive to improve standards of writing, oracy and reading for all students
