01842 668080
Organisation: Trelewis Primary School
Intervention: Catch Up® Literacy
Submitted by: Mr Ryan Morgan
Background
Trelewis Primary School in South Wales caters for 240 pupils, including 12 part-time Nursery. Around 16% of pupils are eligible for FSM. The school has around 20% of pupils with SEN, and a few pupils have a statement of learning needs. Very few pupils have English as an additional language.
Catch Up® Literacy is a long-standing intervention that has been used within the school to support learners who are slightly behind the expected level. We have identified Catch Up® as an effective tool for plugging this gap and promoting pupils’ reading abilities. As such, we continue to use this as a core part of our intervention strategies.
Implementation
The Catch Up® Literacy intervention has proven to be very successful at Trelewis School for a number of years. Our Intervention Teacher attended a 90-minute information session, which gave the overview of Catch Up® Literacy and how to implement and manage it effectively within the school. Other LSAs later received training over three half-days in order to implement the delivery of Catch Up®. Feedback was given to governors and existing staff members during a teacher training day. At Trelewis, we value parental support, and felt it was essential to invite parents whose children were selected to take part in the intervention, to attend an informal Catch Up® workshop to discuss how it would benefit their children.
Within our school, we organise and timetable the one-to-one sessions in agreement with the Head Teacher and relevant class teachers, to ensure that Catch Up® is consistent and seen as a priority. The 15-minute sessions are delivered twice a week to target the needs of the individual children who have been identified for Catch Up® support. The agreed timetable works well for all staff but especially the children, as they are familiar with when their delivery days take place.
The Intervention Teacher works closely with the Head Teacher/SENCO/Class teachers to identify suitable children who are underachieving, with a difference between their reading age and their chronological age. We look at children who have poor reading strategies, ignore punctuation frequently or are hesitant and have a robotic reading style. We administer the standardised Salford reading test to confirm our selected children. Once identification has taken place, we carry out the Catch Up® Literacy assessments for learning, to determine what the learner can do and where their needs lie. These are then used to set up Catch Up® Literacy targets and to identify the appropriate starting point for support. Following each 15-minute session undertaken with a child, the Catch Up® deliverer provides the learner with feedback regarding their achievements and progress.
We believe in Trelewis that it is important to liaise effectively with relevant class teachers to discuss children’s progress and ensure open communication is upheld to evaluate/review Catch Up® Literacy in our school.
Case Study 1 - Catch Up® Literacy
Child A was identified for Catch Up® in Year 2; her chronological age was 7 years and 4 months. After completing the Salford test, her reading age was found to be 6 years and 6 months, highlighting a gap of 10 months. Child A enjoyed reading but lacked confidence in her ability. However, this has now changed and her reading and phonic strategies have greatly improved. She responded very well to the individual attention and structure of the Catch Up® sessions and made fantastic progress.
Child A began Catch Up® Literacy in the Summer term (whilst in Year 2) and continued with the intervention until the Spring term in Year 3. Her reading age at the end of this 7-month period was 8 years and 3 months, which showed overall progress of +21 months. We are delighted that Catch Up® Literacy has helped Child A achieve her potential.
Aims
• To create an ethos of high standards and expectations throughout the school.
• To provide high quality teaching and learning experiences to enable all children to achieve the highest standards of which they are capable in all areas of the curriculum.
• To give all our pupils access to a broad and balanced curriculum to enable them to achieve their full potential.
• To secure a meaningful partnership between home, school and the wider community.