"Confidence in all areas increased and pupils really valued the small group experience"
About the school
Langtree School is a mixed secondary school in Reading, Oxfordshire and has just over 600 students. It has used Hackney Education’s LIT Programme since 2020.
Langtree’s ethos is ‘Putting Learning First’. In 2022, they achieved the best results in their history with an attainment score of 56.7. 83% of their students achieved 5 or more GCSEs at English and Maths grade 4 or above. Langtree was judged a ‘good school’ with ‘outstanding’ features’ by Ofsted in February 2023.
The report comments that, ‘Leaders ensure that reading is prioritised. There is a well-established culture of reading for pleasure. This includes library lessons for pupils in key stage 3. Weaker readers are provided with effective support to help them catch up.’
LIT Programme implementation
For the past three years, the programme has been run under the supervision and strategy of the school’s LIT Lead, Kathryn Maunder-Hand, who is the Head of KS3 English and Literacy Coordinator.
LIT is run across five sessions per fortnight across Year 7 and 8. Students are taken out of modern foreign languages sessions to access LIT whilst still attending mainstream English lessons. To date, there have been four groups in Year 7 and five groups in Year 8 in total, with between five and ten students in each. In addition to the programme’s in-built baseline assessment, Langtree uses a combination of CAT scores and standardised reading age score results to find pupils of similar ability and they receive five lessons per fortnight across Years 7 and 8. Weaker students have further 1:1 intervention.
The LIT Lead provides regular training and feedback sessions to teachers providing the lessons, who are usually trained English teachers or HLTAs. As the programme develops over time, delivery can be tweaked and adapted, according to the changing needs of the school. For example, for this 2022-23 academic year, Year 7s started after the February half term and they will undertake LIT until July, and those that need to will continue with the programme throughout Year 8. Furthermore, there are two classes of Year 8, that started in September and will continue with the programme until July.
Staff from Langtree have attended many of the forums run by Hackney Education to get help and support both from Hackney and other schools on the delivery of the programme and the logistics of running it. They also attended the programme’s additional phonics training, which was found to be helpful as some students had very low reading ages of below five and phonics was useful as an alternative intervention.
The school is now intending to use the strategies from the programme across the whole school.
Why Langtree chose the LIT Programme
"Langtree started LIT to provide a cohesive literacy program; we wanted a robust system that would ensure rapid progress for students who needed a literacy boost."
"LIT was chosen because of its well-structured resources and lessons that can be adapted well to suit our learners. We also found the communication between Hackney Education and the school very friendly and helpful."
What the LIT teachers think
Fiona Hoff teaches the LIT Programme at Langtree:
"Some students who previously considered themselves 'non-readers' now choose to read for pleasure.
Moreover, Hackney Education's strategy for developing communication including 'tracking' and constant reinforcement has been very effective for students who find focus and concentration difficult."
Impact of the LIT Programme
The 2021-2022 Year 7 LIT Programme cohort, received the LIT intervention for only 3 months and achieved an average of 18 month’s progress in their reading ages.
Year 9 students are moving on to complete the Entry Level Certificate in their Literacy lessons, and the school attributes their learning from their LIT lessons to their readiness for this qualification.
Kathryn Maunder-Hand says of the impact of LIT:
“On the whole, we found our pupils thoroughly enjoyed their lessons and grew in confidence as a result. The majority of Year 7 pupils wanted to continue with the programme into Year 8. I have seen some excellent examples of descriptive writing which I don't think pupils would have managed in their mainstream English lessons.
We held a Celebration Assembly for our first Year 7 groups which was a huge success. Parents came to help celebrate the success of the pupils and hear more about their achievements. All pupils gave a presentation to parents about the programme and about things they'd learned from the programme which was a huge success in itself and proof of how they'd grown in confidence.”