At Sir Joseph Banks High School, we believe we are leading the way in providing our students with quality literacy learning that is not only embedded into every class in every stage, but also explicitly taught in our junior years to prepare students for the HSC.
Targeted literacy is delivered in the following ways:
Years 7 and 8
Power Up
Our Power Up literacy program has been recognised for excellence at state level and has recently won the Australian College of Educators NSW Annual Excellence in Education Award.
In 2018 the Power Up explicit literacy program was introduced for Year 8 students. The process of Power Up can be summarised as follows:
- students are tested in reading, comprehension and writing
- students are plotted on the literacy continuum
- using visible learning strategies, students place their ninja avatar on a visible learning wall to indicate their current level of learning. The next level of learning is clearly specified on a bookmark which students constantly refer to. The bookmarks make it easy for students to see and understand what they need to do to move up a level and increase their knowledge.
- teachers work with partner teachers to deliver explicit literacy strategies and consult with students one on one to improve learning
- students can move up and down the continuum.
The response of students to the program is very positive and results are excellent. For example, in Power Up 2017 some Year 9 students recorded 4 years’ worth of growth in 1 term of Power Up.
Powered Up parents is a new program designed to help our parents become literacy experts and support their children at home.
Know Make
The Know Make scaffold is used across all key learning areas and helps students to organise their ideas in writing and develop their skills in producing well-structured short and extended responses in informative, narrative and persuasive writing.
Drop everything and read (DEAR)
DEAR is implemented in homerooms in Years 7 and 8. High interest and levelled ability fiction and non fiction books have been purchased by the school in class sets. Students read as a class and individually work through structured reading activities that focus on the super 6 strategies of reading and comprehension. We are very excited to launch this program and know that it will bridge the gap in reading.
Years 9 and 10
Power Up
In 2018, we initiated a Power Up explicit literacy course for Year 9 and continued the Power Up explicit literacy course with Year 10 students. The Year 9 course saw explicit literacy strategies delivered 3 lessons per week with 2 lessons of numeracy. After NAPLAN, the Year 9 Power Up course turns into STEAMed-UP where the students work to design their own STEM/STEAM projects. Year 10 students continue the Power Up course in preparation for writing for the HSC in the coming years.
Drop everything and read
Drop everything and read (DEAR) is implemented in homerooms in Year 9. High interest and levelled ability fiction and non fiction books have been purchased by the school in class sets. Students read as a class and individually work through structured reading activities that focus on the super 6 strategies of reading and comprehension. We are very excited to launch this program and know that it will bridge the gap in reading.
Junior alarm
A junior Alarm (A Learning and Responding Matrix) and Know Make scaffold for Years 9 and 10 has been developed. The literacy scaffold aims to support student writing and prepare them for HSC writing demands. Both scaffolds provide a framework for students to organise their ideas and to develop their skills in writing.
Years 11 and 12
ALARM
Explicit literacy demands are addressed in Years 11 and 12 with the ALARM scaffold which was developed by Max Woods. Teachers have undertaken professional learning sessions in ALARM and are now implementing the framework in all senior classes. The framework helps students to identify the types of questions and the demands of the answers. It teases out the content and skills in a matrix that develops their short and extended response writing into a quality HSC level piece. HSC results from 2017 and 2018 reveal the impact of the ALARM scaffold in an increase of Band 6 grades across the school.