Literacy and Numeracy

Please note our literacy and numeracy provision is under review for September 2019

LITERACY

At Duke’s, we believe in the importance of developing students’ reading, writing and communication skills through high expectations and regular daily practice. We have a whole school focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) and every teacher  takes responsibility for literacy in their subject area.  A consistent approach, time and the repetition of these key skills have a powerful effect on student progress.  A reading book, dictionary, thesaurus and green pen are part of their essential literacy equipment. We provide opportunities for students to read throughout the school day and encourage parents to support this at home so that all students read for a minimum of thirty-five minutes daily. This further supports the Accelerated Reader intervention for Years 7 and 8 where we were awarded ‘Model School’ status in 2015 & 2018.

The school community as a whole supports us in our expectations that students speak in Standard English, expressing themselves in full statements wherever possible. By working together as a learning community to build students’ literacy skills, we believe that students will have the necessary skills to be successful with their education at Duke’s and beyond.

We also provide a range of interventions including small group teaching for our students needing additional Literacy support.

For more information on any aspect of Literacy at Duke’s or the small group interventions, please contact:

Ms C Sayer, Head of English – csa@dukesacademy.org.uk

Ms L McLaughlin, Head of Differentiation and SENCO – lmc@dukesacademy.org.uk

 

NUMERACY

At Duke’s, we believe that to be truly functional, our students need to be highly numerate. Therefore in addition to our mathematics lesson, we expect numeracy opportunities to be identified and highlighted in all areas of the curriculum. We have high expectations of our students’ readiness to learn and therefore have a scientific calculator and a geometry set are part of their essential equipment list.

To ensure Numeracy is high on the school agenda, we have a fortnightly numeracy activity to be completed during registration time across the school and drop down days with a numeracy theme such as ‘Money Week’.

For students requiring additional Numeracy support, we also provide a range of interventions including small group teaching.

For more information on any aspect of Numeracy at Duke’s or the small group interventions, please contact:

Mr T Hines, Director of Maths, Business and ICT – thi@dukesacademy.org.uk