Enhancing student literacy at Callaghan College Jesmond Senior Campus
Callaghan College Jesmond Senior Campus is committed to enhancing student literacy. Critical to the achievement of this goal is the appreciation that the explicit teaching of literacy is not simply the domain of English, but is a core responsibility of each teacher, within each Key Learning Area (KLA). It is also vital that students’ literacy skills are continually developed during their transition from junior school to senior school.
To achieve these objectives, the College Writing Team (CWT) was established. The CWT is a group of teachers from Callaghan College Jesmond Senior Campus, Wallsend Campus and Waratah Technology Campus, who are working together to develop and deliver a consistent approach to the explicit teaching of literacy skills to students at each campus. The CWT has identified several key focus areas for improving student literacy across all KLAs. Currently, the focus has been on two main areas. Firstly, teaching students to consistently utilise paragraph structures using the acronym Topic, Expand, Evidence, Elaborate, and Conclude (TEEEC). Secondly, assisting students to develop cohesion within and between paragraphs, using conjunctions, connectives and the concept of ‘given and new’. Additional literacy strategies will be implemented throughout the year.
Recently collected student work samples have indicated that students are already benefiting from this sustained focus on enhancing literacy skills. The staff at Callaghan College Jesmond Senior Campus look forward to continuing to build upon this positive trend into the future.