English at St. Mary’s

To live with purpose and participate fully

At St. Mary’s we believe that every learner flourishes through the explicit and effective teaching of literacy skills. Our English program aims to develop a love of life long reading and essential literacy skills and strategies to actively engage in an ever changing world.

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We provide many opportunities for our students to interact orally, to read and write every day within a framework which involves whole group, small group and individual instruction. Students at St Mary’s are encouraged to problem solve, self regulate and monitor their own learning in a collaborative setting.

Our students for whom English is an additional language are supported through the use of the EAL Developmental Continuum which assists teachers to identify students’ current stage of English language development. This assessment can be used for reporting purposes and to plan for purposeful teaching for individuals and small groups of students with similar needs.

 We believe our effective English Program:

• uses ongoing assessment to personalise the learning for every student
• uses the Victorian Curriculum to inform all learning, teaching and reporting
• focusses on building oral language and comprehension skills and fosters a love of reading
• provides Literacy Intervention to students at risk –Fountas and Pinnell Levelled Literacy Intervention and ERIK (Enhanced Reading Intervention Knowledge)
• incorporates explicit, scaffolded teaching foci during whole class shared reading/writing and small focus reading/writing groups
• is structured, sequential and incorporates evidence based practices and strategies
• provides students with opportunities to practise skills and strategies during independent learning time
• provides professional development to build teacher capacity to enable high quality teaching