Posted on: 05/10/2022
Dan is an Assistant Principal at Yew Tree Primary Academy with the responsibilities of leading whole school curriculum, assessment, and English. He is also the Lead KS2 Moderator for Knowsley as well as being a Literacy Tree Lead Teacher.
Literary Leaves are book-based comprehension planning resources for Y2-Y6 designed to support teachers with the teaching of reading, using whole books, rather than extracts. They can be used in whole-class or guided reading sessions. Yew Tree Primary Academy began using the planning sequences in September 2018, before adding the Literary Leaves layer to our English delivery in January 2019. We made the choice to use The Literary Curriculum because we wanted reading to be at the heart of our curriculum, and Literacy Tree had selected multiple quality texts to choose from that also linked to other areas of the curriculum.
Yew Tree Primary Academy is a one form entry school with a Designated Special Provision, in one of the most deprived Local Authorities in the country. This intern comes with many challenges for our children and families. Due to the strong community feel and our reputation around highly inclusive SEND practice, it leads to high numbers of SEND within our cohorts - this poses some unique opportunities in curriculum provision, as well as teaching and learning. Our principal aim is for ‘Excellence for All’ developing; determination, resilience, empowerment, adventure, motivation, behaviour, inclusivity and generosity through our vision to DREAMBIG. All children leaving Yew Tree prepared for the next stages of their educational and life journey, having the knowledge, social, emotional and communication skills to prosper and inspire them to continue to be lifelong independent learners, striving to achieve their best. We feel that reading and the love of reading will open many doors for our children and support their success.
In Yew Tree Primary Academy, Literary Leaves are delivered across Year 2 to Year 6, to the whole class. We decided to do it in this way to enable the children to truly immerse themselves in a novel, unpick the author's process and to develop the knowledge and skills needed to critically analyse and evaluate a story from start to finish. The books are carefully chosen and are pivotal to the success of our English curriculum. To support our children's contextual and experiential understanding, we select books that also link to our 'topics'. Examples of this would be:
-In Year 2, we have a topic called ‘London Calling’ (History- events beyond living memory) and we use the Literary Leaves ‘The Street Beneath Our Feet’.
-In Year 3 we have a topic ‘Set In Stone’- (studying the Stone age to Iron Age), and we use the Literary Leaves ‘The Lost Species’.
-In Year 6 we have a topic linked to Ancient Greece, and we use the Literary Leaves ‘Who Let The Gods Out?’
In Key Stage 2, Literary Leaves are additional to our English lessons. However in year 2, we found it advantageous to alternate the English session from a Literary Leaves to a planning sequence. It meant the children only needed to retain the complexities of one story at a time, and giving priority to daily Literary Leaves sessions allowed the children to truly immerse themselves. They genuinely enjoyed the text more when it was daily, and we then saw it impact in the following writing sequence.
How we evidence all our Literary Leaves learning is through an A3 floor book. We have a sharp focus on the children demonstrating their learning linked to the National Curriculum's Programme of Study. The Literary Leaves planning support this in a fun way.
I know data is only one way to measure impact, and our children's love of literature is far more compelling - in fact we now have many children requesting for birthdays and Christmas full series of novels linked to books and authors they have read in school. Not a game or device, a book! We have also opened our school library to the community for the children to bring their family in and share the books they love. It has changed the culture of our school and how we have shaped our curriculum.
However, I know data is a prominent measure of success - whether we all agree with it or not. So here is a small snippet of our end of Key Stage 2 data over a five year period.
Over the five years we have seen an incredible 42% increase in the number of children achieving EXS in Reading and a 10% increase at Greater Depth, with progress improving by +4.2.
Our data does show that this approach gives the children the skills required to achieve well on a SATs paper, and prepare them for KS3. But its impact surpasses this; it supports children becoming lifelong readers.
But don’t just take it from me, here are the true words of our children:
A year 6 child, ‘my favourite book this year was Percy Jackson and The Lightening Thief, because it has got me into the full series of books! There are three series and 5 books in each, I’ve read ten books and finished the first two series and just started the third series.’
A child in Year 3, ‘I loved The Tear Thief- it was like real- the sounds in the story makes you think it is real. It helps me when I do stories and it helps me make my stories real. Oh and The Black Dog- love, loved this one. It is all about facing your fears and he got smaller and smaller and you couldn’t see him anymore and it teaches you what could happen when you face your fears.
A child in Year 2, ‘all of them are my favourite - no wait, I didn’t like the tadpole one. I liked the dragon Machine we are learning now. It is fun because you know that dragons are real, David Attenborough said they were real. I like there is an orangutan in my bedroom- it inspires kids to look after orangutans and learns kids about life and what to do.’
Please see the children's learning through the Literary Leaves evidenced in our floor books the videos and photos below.
I thank you for taking the time to read our blog, and thank our passionate staff and children at Yew Tree Primary Academy for making reading a priority.
Dan is one of our Lead Teachers and Advisory Panel members for 2022/23. He is the Assistant Principal in Yew Tree Primary Academy, in the Northwest. He is the Curriculum Lead and English Lead across both a mainstream school and a Designated Special Provision. He is also the Lead KS2 Writing Moderator for Knowsley.
His main area of interest is inclusive children's literature. He is passionate about children being able to see themselves in books they read, because he believes representation is powerful. He has always admired the skill authors have to directly impact a reader in a single moment or leave a long-lasting impression. He hopes to one day write his own children's book.
Posted in: Curriculum
