| Dumfries And Galloway Council
|
|
| Strategy |
| 1 To promote children’s
early literacy development in homes, nursery and primaries 1 & 2 through
offering encouragement and assistance to parents, teachers and other staff and other
community resources, and specifically: |
- To support staff in 6 identified schools by providing
additional staffing and other resources.
- To develop and provide staff development opportunities for
learning and implementing best practice drawing upon current research in literacy
development.
- To encourage, support and develop ways for schools to work
with parents in a fashion which recognises the central contribution of the home.
- To raise expectation and attainment in the project schools.
|
| 2 To develop and employ
techniques for assessment and identification of literacy skills. |
| 3 To disseminate information
about literacy development. |
| 4 To evaluate the effect of
interventions. |
| 5 To inform policy development.
|
| A management group was
established early and Area Principal Educational Psychologist seconded to position of
part-time co-ordinator. Some outside consultancy was attained. A development plan has been
devised. Focus schools have been selected on the basis of evidence of social and economic
disadvantage and pupil underachievement. |
| Classroom assistants have been
appointed to work in these schools to promote the curricular interventions which are
supported by a systematic programme of staff development offered to all early years staff
in these schools and led by the co-ordinator and 2 full-time area tutors, seconded
from headteachers positions to the initiative. Area Tutors work alongside staff in P1 and
P2 classes to promote pupil attainment and curriculum development, and have organised
parent meetings and initiated book lending schemes. At nursery commencement next session
all parents will be offered a literacy pack containing suggestions for their involvement
in promoting the children’s emerging literacy. |
| Resource banks of early
intervention materials have been established in 2 sites for all staff to consult and
borrow. |
| All Nursery, P1 and P2 children
in focus schools have undergone extensive baseline assessment by way of locally produced
checklist materials and results disseminated. Annual repetition of that procedure with
successive cohorts of children will inform the evaluation of pupil attainment outcome.
Additionally, all P3 and P4 children have received group test of literacy and numeracy, as
also have a comparator cohort of pupils in non-focus schools. Attainment of these pupils
will be measured against the attainment of those pupils now in P1 and P2 at the end of the
project. |
| |
| Scope |
| There are currently 6 focus
schools involved, all having nursery classes with total roll of 237 nursery children. The
school have P1 and P2 rolls of 224 and 209 respectively. Thus 670 children are benefiting
directly from the initiative. |
| |
| Achievement and emerging lessons
|
| At last there is being offered a
systematic focus upon how we teach literacy, this has required - and we have
undoubtedly helped, staff to take a broader view of literacy development. Concerning
parent involvement, we have learned especially that on focusing upon areas of shared
literacy skill development, parents can begin to appreciate their central contribution.
But we now understand that this will be a long term process for parents and schools to
develop a genuine partnership ethos likely to require many strategies. |
| |
| Local Views |
| Parent: "It’s
fantastic. I can’t get to the library in town so it’s great being able to choose
books at school when I come for my children". |
|
| Teacher: "Early
Intervention is going swimmingly well - we can already see a difference and I’m
sure it will continue to do so". |
|
| Teacher: "Why
haven’t we had this before now". |
