Literacy Action Planning in Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

Literacy Action Planning in Schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

CONTEXT

Learning to read is a complex process that makes it much more difficult for teachers to facilitate learning. This is made more difficult because learning to read and write in English is less straightforward than other ‘transparent language’ such as Maltese and Italian because of its structure of the language with a lot of irregular words. Furthermore, this is made more complicated because of the different approaches used by different schools in different countries.

The context of this project arises from the need to carry out an evaluation to how English is taught in different schools and in different countries, see what works best and develop a SCHOOL ACTION PLAN addressing these particular needs. The need of this project also arises from the lack of expertise of teachers to choose what works best since different trainers and schools of thought offer different possibilities and solutions. Our schools and other schools in this project have already pinpointed certain shortcomings of the current teaching methods and are looking into more research-based methods of teaching that have been found effective in pilot projects done by the school.

Objectives of the project include:

(Obj.1) Provide professional development on teaching language to a number of educators in a more holistic and engaging way that includes a) literacy in the early years and; b) literacy in the upper years.

(Obj.2) Develop/Update school action plan for the teaching of English language;

(Obj. 3) Gain enough professional learning development to disseminate training with all church schools in Malta by creating a community of professional learning communities.

(Obj. 4) Engage learners in the teaching of English and reduce Early School leaving by using strategies already found to be effective in other schools abroad;

(Obj. 5) Offer parents better strategies to better support their children in language learning;

(Obj. 6) Disseminate learning outcomes of activity and guidelines to a further 50 teachers over the span of the project.

(obj. 7) School decides to evaluates current literacy practices and adopt new programmes/approaches if necessary

Profile of participants:

i) Members of the SMT (Senior Management Team) from each school to gain knowledge in the teaching of reading in order to develop, monitor and guide the school action plan for the teaching of literacy.

ii) Teachers and Learning Support Educators do not have the required knowledge to take be able to choose the best whole school approach and furthermore they lack the professional development to teachers in the classroom. The number of teachers involved in participating in this action plan includes the primary teachers in the early years where the teaching of reading begins and this also includes teachers from the upper primary years.

Activities:

From this activity, educators will get more knowledge on how to teach letter formation using mnemonics, reading, spelling, and compose their ideas step-by-step. The aim is for schools to share practices that help children learn how to learn to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. Different schools can, therefore, share their current practices, talk about what research is saying and look to implement in the future and also listen to expert advice from keynote speakers.

One important objective of this activity, apart from sharing of different teaching strategies is for schools to go back to their schools with a school action plan for the teaching of literacy in the early years and in the following months implement key action plans updated.

Activity 2

The aim of this activity is to discuss strategies that are stimulating and challenge children’s literacy skills in context, with the challenge being to bring together different skills rather than present a fragmented curriculum.

This sharing of ideas aims at providing educators with professional development in implementing innovative ways of teaching these skills, especially grammar, in ways that are engaging and motivating. This is to reduce disengagement of learning in such a pivotal subject, that most early school leavers struggle with. With increase literacy levels obtained from the experiences gained in activity 1, learners would then be guided to access more domains of the curriculum.

Once again the objective of this activity, apart from sharing good practice, is for schools to decide upon methodologies and programs to be implemented once the early years literacy program (activity 1) is complete. In other words, this activity will provide schools with the necessary planning required to offer a smooth transition to teaching and learning.

Activity 3:

This will include a concluding seminar in Malta where teachers share the outcomes and the school action plans (including other schools not in the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 102440 Eur

Project Coordinator

St. Joseph School, Blata l-Bajda & Country: MT

Project Partners

• St Francis School Gozo
• St Joseph School Sliema
• St Joseph’s RC Primary School
• Stantonbury International School
• St Theresa School