Literacy
“Literacy is a platform for democratisation, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realise his or her full potential.” (Kofi Annan 1997)
At Corby Technical School, we believe learners need to be able to read and discuss a wide range of texts which they will experience throughout the curriculum and in the outside world. For every learner to meet our high aspirations, our learners must become proficient, fluent readers who enjoy what they read and actively participate in discussion and debate about great texts.
Our highly ambitious aim is to cultivate a lifelong love of reading. Employing research led strategies we aim to systematically embed the habit of reading in our learners; to develop their confidence in reading and to foster a love of reading that will last beyond the curriculum regardless of their background. We are committed to ensuring that learners have access to a wide range of challenging and engaging books and that they are systematically immersed in the reading and discussion of high-quality texts.
In order to build reading fluency and true comprehension, students need to build “reading miles” within their lessons and, increasingly, independently. We draw on quality texts and resources to teach reading. Our staff have been trained in using echo reading and cloze reading techniques to support comprehension and help build fluency.
Building “reading miles “at KS3 is further supported by the use of the Sparx reader programme. The programme encourages students to read widely and independently to inspire a positive reading culture at home and in school. Year 7 and Year 8 students have a fortnightly library lesson where they explore the library resources with support from our Librarian with the reading content closely linked to the English curriculum. Year 7 and Year 8 students also have a fortnightly literacy lesson which uses extracts of literature and literary non-fiction to promote discussion, predictions and through close analysis. These lessons explicitly teach reading skills which build student understanding and comprehension of written texts.
Students have access to our school library before school and through after school clubs and at break times and lunchtimes. There is a designated study area in the library with revision resources available for KS4 and KS5.
We use NGRT to identify students who find reading difficult. Those students who cannot yet read well will be unable to access the full curriculum. We will offer intervention for those who require additional support using a bespoke intervention programme including the Ruth Miskin phonics programme Fresh Start. Those who have “graduated” through the phonics programme but need to build their “reading miles” are allocated a sixth form reading mentor for weekly reading sessions. Our sixth form reading mentors have been trained on echo and cloze reading activities and encourage their mentees to share their opinions on, ad make predictions about, their reading.
Corby Technical School is a reading school. We believe that “reading is a ticket for life” and we celebrate reading across the school with assemblies, themed events, visits, competitions and activities.
Throughout school specialist academic writing is taught in subjects using appropriate writing strategies. These are modelled and scaffolded for students using writing frames and live modelling and scaffolds are removed as and when appropriate.
We regard it as essential to explicitly teach subject specialist vocabulary to build powerful knowledge since that knowledge can only be understood with mastery of the correct terminology. We feel it is important to recognise that each subject has different priorities for vocabulary for example in History it is important to understand the context or certain words whereas, in Science, it might be about establishing precise meaning of words. Therefore teaching focusses on the exploration of words in different contexts and importance of breaking words down to understand the origins of the words and how they can be applied in their own work. All of these are part of academy language we want our students to understand and acquire in their day to day vocabulary. The teaching of vocabulary is supported in many subjects by the use of Frayer models.
At CTS, we believe that oracy is fundamental to academic success, personal development and future employability. Simply put, if students cannot say it, they cannot write it. High-quality talk underpins strong reading, writing and thinking across the curriculum, and enables students to articulate ideas with clarity, confidence and purpose.
Our Oracy Policy is informed by the Oracy Education Commission Report (2024), which highlights the vital role of talk in learning, social mobility and life chances. We place purposeful talk at the heart of teaching and learning because discussion drives understanding, deepens thinking and builds empathy by encouraging students to listen to, respect and learn from different perspectives.
We expect students to engage in hard thinking for deep learning, at CTS and structured talk is central to this. Lessons routinely include think–pair–share so that all students have the opportunity to rehearse ideas, refine their thinking and build confidence before contributing to whole-class discussion. Students are taught how to build upon, challenge and probe the ideas of others thoughtfully, using carefully modelled sentence starters to ensure discussion is respectful, inclusive and academically ambitious.