"We have worked with Literacy Tree as part of our large multi academy trust (more than 20 primary schools). Many of our schools were already using a book based approach to literacy but this had, over the years, lost progression and needed some life breathing into it. The team at Literacy Tree worked closely with us to ensure that they understood what we wanted to achieve and we work to put together an annual training plan for all the teachers across our Trust. This involved teachers from FS – Y6 and we now have a strong shared understanding of what we want our English curriculum to offer pupils in all our schools and how to achieve this using a series of exceptional texts.
Through our bespoke training, staff have widened their knowledge of children’s literature – we have introduced many new, high quality authors and books into our classrooms. This has been particularly true around the non fiction books we are now using. The knowledge and passion of our trainer has shone through in every session and teachers, whether new of experienced, have hugely benefited from her expertise.
Our planning sequences are now much more coherent and progressive both in within and between year groups. We have carefully focused on ensuing SPAG objectives are introduced with clear explanations and children then have multiple opportunities to practise and apply these skills. Because the texts are so engaging children (and adults) are quickly drawn into them. This supports their vocabulary and reading skills as well as supporting their writing. We have particularly focused on creating meaningful opportunities for children to write – both more sustained as well as shorter writes.
Our next Literacy Tree adventure is our whole trust shared unit that we created at the end of the summer term. This is to support the reopening of schools after Covid 19 by rebuilding our school communities through a whole school text. As always, Literacy Tree were careful to fully understand our needs and then support us to develop planning from Y1 – 6 that will be used with 4000+ pupils."
Janine Ashman,
Deputy Headteacher and Teaching School Lead
