English/Literacy

English Faculty

Term 1 has very much been the ‘creative’ term in the English faculty. Year 7's undertook their ‘Genre Jumping’ unit, which culminated in a creative narrative. At Year 8, students used a variety of texts from the short story collection ‘Things a Map Won’t Show You’ to draw inspiration for their own short narrative pieces. Year 9 students had a similar focus but drew inspiration from the text ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’, while Year 10's did the same with a collection of short stories. While each year level had a focus on grammar and punctuation within their writing, the ‘anchor’ texts were progressively more complex. At VCE, Unit 1 students undertook a ‘Personal response to text’ with ‘We have always lived in the Castle’, and Unit 3 students responded to the text ‘Flames’.

At Years 7 and 8, many teachers trailed the use of ‘developmental assessment’ in Term 1. This approach to assessment, a direction the whole school is heading in, targets individual students’ point of need. It involves prioritising maximising their learning growth rather than the ‘levels’ or ‘grades’. We are excited to do more work with developmental assessment in Term 2 and beyond.

Term 2 will see all year levels focus on text analysis. This entails analytically reading of texts to draw out themes, issue and argument and will generally involve seeking learning growth for all our students in essay writing. So look for copies of ‘The Giver’ (Year 7), ‘Flowers for Algenon’ (Year 9) and ‘The Crucible’ (Year 12) around your home, have a read, and start a conversation about these texts!  If you feel like a good family movie, take in ‘Wall-E’ (Year 8) and discuss the powerful ideas it explores!

This is my first year in the role of English faculty leader at the Heights, and it has been a pleasure to observe the professionalism of staff and their commitment to developing and delivering a curriculum that seeks to cater for the diverse learning needs that exist in every classroom. Students at The Heights are in good hands!

Literacy at the Heights

As my first term in the role of Literacy Learning Specialist at the Heights, there has been a lot of behind the scenes work to ensure our literacy focus stays strong and effective. Our past achievements in reading and writing growth for our cohorts is something we are proud of and seek to extend. Of course, all of these achievements are a reflection on the entire Lilydale Heights community, and it is a privilege to be in a position to further this work.

Our Independent Reading Program grows stronger by the year, and how quiet the halls are when students do their daily independent reading continues to amaze me!  In Term 2, we’ll begin some more work around supporting those students who still haven’t found their ‘hook’ into reading. The best thing a parent can do to support all our students with their reading is to engage with it:  find out what they are reading, have a conversation about it, or maybe even have a read of the texts themselves.

Staff professional learning is key to ensuring the implementation of our cross-curricular Literacy teaching practices. In Term 1, we focussed on supporting teachers to read and interpret reading data we gather from PAT testing, and modelled strategies to cater for students’ point of need. This work will continue in Term 2 and form a key part of our teachers ‘Action Learning Tasks’, wherein they share their journey in supporting the learning growth of students with each other.

Also coming up in Term 2 will be more teacher support in the classroom. In Term 1, we developed a ‘model for shared practice’, which establishes protocols and areas of focus for teachers to observe one another’s practice. I am particularly passionate about this work. We have many talented teachers at The Heights and enabling an ‘open door’ classroom culture means we stand to learn a great deal from each other.

We look to continuing this work in Term 2.  And remember:  Literacy is the how we translate texts into our own knowledge, so get as many texts around you as possible!