Literacy   

At St. John’s Regional College, 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 VCE. In schools across the country, adolescent students are in critical need of intensive instruction to learn how to more successfully interact with and construct meaning from the texts they use daily. This is why in 2022 we launched our whole school literacy program. This approach involves explicit teaching of challenging subject-related texts with high levels of scaffolding, leading to successful, independent literacy learners. In English classes the students are taking part in the Independent Reading Program, where they are able to choose their own novels to read, leading to an increased motivation and drive to read new and unfamiliar texts.  The students are taking part in reading conferences with their English teachers, in which they assess, discuss and set goals for their reading. A whole school literacy approach means that literacy is important in every subject, not just in English classes.  At St. John’s we are currently providing intensive professional development for teachers of all subject areas, so that they are able to incorporate explicit literacy teaching into their current curriculum. It is a very exciting time and progress isn’t possible without change. I am extremely excited to be working with all the staff, students, parents and leadership within our school community to improve the literacy skills of our students as we start this new chapter.