We believe Literacy is the core of our teaching and learning strategies. At Ursuline College, we are supporting the development of our students’ love of reading, writing and discussion. If our students are confident, competent readers they will have the tools they need to succeed across all subjects, providing them with the skills they need to thrive in later life. We believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education, to empowering students, improving their self-esteem, impacting positively on mental well-being and behaviour and promoting higher levels of attainment.

Our priority focus for this year is to develop a culture of reading for pleasure through our Tutor Time Reading Programme. Through our carefully curated collection of texts, students will be exposed to a wide range of genres, ideas and concepts both in tutor time and across the curriculum. Alongside our efforts to provide meaningful reading opportunities in the school day, we also ensure that literacy is an integral part of every lesson with teachers recognising their role in developing reading, writing, speaking and listening in their subject discipline.

Disciplinary literacy – Developing reading in all subjects

Disciplinary literacy is the unique way of reading, writing, speaking and listening in every subject. In order to be able to confidently ‘read like a Geographer’ or ‘speak like a Historian’, students need to be inducted into the nuanced ways of subject specialists. Moving forward, students will be exposed to challenging, academic texts within each subject discipline that not only develop their subject knowledge but help them to become more able readers in that subject area.

At our secondary school, we are actively supporting disciplinary literacy by helping students develop the specific reading, writing, and vocabulary skills needed for success in each subject. Teachers model how to approach subject-specific texts, such as scientific reports, historical sources, or mathematical problems, and explicitly teach the language and structures unique to their disciplines. Through strategies like guided reading, structured writing frames, and targeted vocabulary instruction, students learn to think, read, and write like subject specialists. This approach ensures literacy is not seen as just an English lesson skill, but as essential to learning across the entire curriculum.

Targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject

At the start of lessons, students will be exposed to ‘VV Words’ - Valuable Vocabulary which are a combination of Tier 3 (subject specific words) and Tier 2 words (ambitious everyday words) that are needed for students to access the curriculum. Using a repetitive and consistent teaching pattern, students are able to learn and use these words in their work and home learning. These words are chosen by subject leads, tailored to the termly focus curriculum. At the end of a term, students will be tested on newly learned vocabulary to ensure these words are embedded into their long-term memory.

The Day  

The Day is an online reading programme, that we are using in tutor time and also as a supporting lesson resource for all key stages including sixth form.

The website The Day is a valuable tool for developing reading skills and building cultural capital. It provides students with engaging, age-appropriate news articles that expose them to a wide range of current events, global issues, and diverse perspectives.

By regularly reading these articles, we aim to expand students’ vocabulary, improve comprehension skills, and become more confident in interpreting complex texts. At the same time, they gain a deeper understanding of the world around them, enhancing their general knowledge and cultural awareness—key components of cultural capital that support success across the curriculum and beyond school.

Tutor time reading (The Day)

Once a week, students will read an article from the ‘The Day’, with their form time tutor. The tutor reads aloud to model the pace, intonation, emotion and punctuation so that all students, regardless of their current reading ability, can enjoy the story. Students are encouraged to follow along on the board and are praised and encouraged to practise reading small sections out loud. This not only allows them to witness good reading practise but also build their confidence in a classroom setting.

Attached to the article are a range of questions and debate topics aimed to get the students thinking, discussing and verbalising their thoughts. This is a key oracy skill, and by encouraging students to formulate ideas on varied topics, they are building towards more confident, knowledgeable arguments.

Topical debating

Once a week, students will be given a statement that is in connection with the article they have read that week from the ‘The Day’. The tutor will read the statement and then use the question prompts to start off conversations and guide the pupils into building their debating skills. Crafting and creating an effective argument are key literacy skills, as well as encouraging them to listen and consider opinions on relevant cultural topics. There will also be a list of vocabular the students are encouraged to use verbally throughout their conversations.

Ks4 Targeted SPAG interventions

Targeted literacy intervention focused on spelling, punctuation, and grammar is essential for helping learners develop clear and effective communication skills and supporting their academic progress across a range of subjects. Without targeted support, students may struggle to convey their ideas coherently, leading to misunderstandings and reduced engagement. By embedding SPaG interventions into tutor time for a specific group of pupils, it will allow those pupils to build up essential marks in their assessments and also confidence in basic literacy skills.

Recommended reading list, library & Book Clubs

As a parent/carer, we know that you will want to support our efforts to develop your child’s reading for pleasure at home. As such, we’ve created a recommended reading list that you are invited to look through. Perhaps you’d like to buy two copies of a text and read along with your child!

We have a library situated in the ground floor English rooms, where you child is free to borrow any text of their choosing!

We also run a successful Book Club for pupils of all ages to come together and read collectively, discuss plot and engage with pupils from across the school.

’16 for 16’ schoolwide reading challenge

As part of our continued drive towards creating a reading for pleasure culture at Ursuline College, we are taking part in a reading programme that is also being used in grammar and comprehensive schools over the Uk. ’16 for 16’ aims to challenge the students by introducing texts and genres of book that they may not have been exposed to. The choice of texts in the programme also helps introduce key themes and big ideas that they will be learning about for their GCSE years.

Students collect a ’16 for 16’ booklet or can adapt and download the digital version attached on this page. They simply choose their first book from the list and get reading! Parents can get involved too by monitoring their progress with the start and finish date. Parents then sign to show they have fully completed the text.

Once the students have completed a text, they write a short book review and submit it to their form tutor or Miss R Love, which is then entered into a competition for a prize! Once they have completed 16 of these, they are given a prize for competing the programme. We aim to not only enable students to immerse themselves in new texts but reading for only 20 minutes a day have been proven to have a transformative impact on your child’s academic ability alongside boosting their well-being.

The Day is a news website dedicated to providing the news to students and young people.