We are committed to:
- making literacy and oracy an integral part of students’ everyday lives while at College
- raising the standards of literacy in all its students.
There is a moral imperative to ensure that students leave Heathfield Community College with a high level of literacy; that is: be a skilled communicator who is successful in applying to the 6th Form, other educational establishments or employment.
Furthermore, competent literacy skills enable students to read, understand and access examination materials so that they can achieve their potential across the Curriculum.
Literacy
All departments and all teachers have a crucial role to play in supporting students’ literacy development.
Baseline assessment including Reading ages and Literacy Tests internally devised as a measure of figurative, punctuation, grammatical and spelling knowledge provide teachers with knowledge of what scaffolding is needed. Reading surveys identify non-readers with whom active and innovative intervention is implemented in Year 8-10, Reading schemes successfully encourage and reward regular readers.
Literacy Guidance signposts strategies that can be used across the curriculum to improve student literacy and support departments embed reading, writing and communication. Literacy intervention supports those who need it to catch up with their peers in vocabulary and reading fluency.
Active approaches to teaching vocabulary, tier two and tier three are owned by all staff and identified in Schemes of Learning. Students know reading, vocabulary and literacy are important across the curriculum.
Whole College training and structures for teaching talk: performative and explorative ensure students are supported to articulate their understanding in different forum to a high standard.
Reading gives students such a wealth of benefits which is why encouraging our students to read is a priority at Heathfield Community College. Find out more about our approaches to supporting reading here: Heathfield Reads
Numeracy
We are equally committed to raising the standards of numeracy of all its students. This means developing the ability of students to use numeracy skills effectively in all areas of the curriculum and beyond, so that students can use numeracy skills to cope confidently with the demands of further education, employment and adult life, providing students with every opportunity to improve their numeracy skills, to:
- Enable students to be confident in applying numeracy to everyday situations
- Support students in the application of their mathematical skills to other subjects.
- Ensure students are confident problem-solvers and can understand how to break a problem down into smaller steps.
- Encourage students to use logic and reasoning when explaining a solution.
Consistent approaches to teaching and using numeracy across the curriculum are set out in a Numeracy Handbook and supported by staff working across departments to ensure consistency of understanding and methodology.
Systematic approaches in Maths embed key skills and numeracy ability in all years.