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Organisation: Laugharne VC Primary School
Intervention: Catch Up® Literacy, Catch Up® Numeracy
Submitted by: Rhian Williams, Year 3/4 teacher and assessment co-ordinator
Background
Laugharne is a small primary school that currently has 70 pupils with three teachers and classes. The school’s first language is English and a majority of the learners come from English speaking homes.
In 2010, a head was appointed and she has worked hard to implement Catch Up® Literacy at the school. Having seen such encouraging results last year, Laugharne were able to send another LSA on the Catch Up® Numeracy course.
Laugharne wanted to introduce an intervention for the foundation stage and a one-to-one programme that was personal to each individual’s needs.
Implementation
In 2010, 27% of children in years 2-6 were identified as ALN in reading and another 13% identified as Basic Skills. This meant 40% of learners needed some form of intervention.
Before the start of the programme, class teachers discussed the learner’s needs with parents at parents' evening. Parents are kept informed throughout the whole process with letters home and termly parents' evenings.
The Catch Up® interventions are timetabled each week and delivered to the basic skills learners in the mornings and to the ALN learners in the afternoon. Catch Up® Numeracy is delivered weekly in the mornings.
Needs are identified in 2 ways; 1) Check National Reading tests to see if a learner’s reading age is below average. 2) Assessment Co-ordinator cross references the standardised scores for the RT and Non verbal reasoning to produce a scatter graph. These learners are deemed as under attaining and, therefore, placed on the Catch Up® Literacy list.
Similarly for maths, they are compared on the NFER maths scores with Non Verbal for year 2 and the class teacher flags up learners in year 1 who are under attaining.
The Catch Up® Co-ordinator receives a list of potential learners, who are screened, and those suitable for the programme are identified and given a timetable. Learners are retested regularly to ensure they are maintaining progress.
Case Study 1 - Catch Up® Literacy
Child A completed her All Wales Reading Test; her reading age was 11 months behind her actual age. Her standardised score for reading against her non verbal further confirmed that she was under attaining in reading.
She was placed onto Catch Up® Literacy and the assessment showed she was 17 months behind. With regular sessions over the autumn term, she had caught up by 15 months in November. She was now 2 months behind her chronological age.
With regular sessions and with constant monitoring by her class teacher, by February she was 4 months ahead. She was retested by the Catch Up® Literacy deliverer in year 2 to ensure she had made continued progress. We were delighted when these results showed that she was now 11 months ahead in her reading age.
We are sure that the early identification and strategies put in place have contributed significantly to her progress, without which she might have fallen further behind.
Now in Year 3, and working at the level expected of a child her age, she continues to grow in confidence.
Case Study 2 - Catch Up® Literacy
We had tried a variety of different strategies to help Child B with his reading but none had been successful. When he reached year 4 he still found difficulties with reading and blending. It was decided that we would try him on Catch Up®. The initial assessment identified him with a Catch Up® Literacy level of 3 and a large gap of 52 months behind his reading age.
Between November 2010 and December 2012, Child B had received 80 Catch Up® sessions. These sessions have helped him catch up with his peers in regard to his reading. In his last assessment, he was 18 months ahead of his chronological age, which meant that in those 2 years he had gained 46 months to his reading age.
He is now able to access the full curriculum easily, and is due to leave us in July for secondary school a fluent and confident reader. We are very proud of his hard work.
Aims
To create successful and confident learners by building on the strengths and talents of each individual. Love for learning…Love for life.