Welcome

A word or two about this space.

A few years ago, I took on the role of Literacy Coordinator in my school. It couldn’t have come at a more exciting time. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) had just published its guidance report, Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools, and the National Literacy Trust contacted us about their Literacy for Life programme to ask if we were interested in joining. We signed up immediately.

Not only was disciplinary literacy at the forefront of the educational agenda, but we had support from literacy consultants who drew on their own research and practice to deliver inspirational training. Alongside this, Tom Martell, a speaker from the EEF, delivered a thrilling keynote to our whole-staff, distilling key aspects of the new report.

I was in a very fortunate position to make things happen.

Meanwhile, I’d long been engaged with the issue of critical language awareness (CLA) and the crucial need to value all language varieties within school, not just the academic register. I knew that I wanted to enable young people to navigate the tricky relationship between language and power so this became a tool in my approach to my new role (please read my CLA statement here).

Now, several years down the line and having worked extensively with colleagues across my school and the local area, I’m even more convinced by the transformational power of disciplinary literacy – something that I call language conscious teaching.

In this space, I aim to delve into what this actually means and what it looks like in the classroom. I’d like to join in the conversations that are happening, share some reflections of my own and offer training resources, developing my own thinking along the way.

I’ll admit that I’m a bit fascinated by how language works in school subjects. I spend a lot of time talking to teachers and immersing myself in disciplinary texts from across the curriculum so I can support departments in their quest to develop a language conscious approach. I make classroom materials to model this pedagogy in action. I work alongside subject-specialists in what I hope is a very practical way. I like to think there’s a rewarding learning curve for all involved!

But while I can see the remarkable difference that language conscious teaching makes to all our students, from transition to Year 13, I’m also aware of the challenges that it can pose for the interrelated issues of teacher development, whole-school strategy, curriculum planning and implementation. As always, change is incremental and a work in progress.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the extensive work that has gone on for years in the fields of functional linguistics and sociocultural theory. I draw heavily on the researchers, theorists and practitioners from within these spheres who have laid the foundations for this work in schools and continue to inform it with their dynamic ideas.

Subject knowledge is communicated through language. So address it we must!

Thanks for dropping by.