Expert training will help drive campaign (From Oxford Mail)

Expert training will help drive campaign

6:00pm Thursday 27th September 2012 in News By Fran Bardsley, covering Education, East Oxford and Cowley. Call me on 01865 425439

DOZENS of teachers and teaching assistants will receive more training as part of the Oxfordshire Reading Campaign.

The National Literacy Trust is using Edge Hill University to provide support for the schools which sign up to be involved in the scheme.

Experts from the Ormskirk-based institution will deliver training for teaching staff here in Oxfordshire.

Nick Dowrick, Edge Hill’s director of intervention support, said: “It is more than just training because we also give them professional development to help them to understand more about the difficulty some children have with reading and about the role of synthetic phonics in helping children learn how to read.”

Synthetic phonics is a method of teaching reading by teaching each individual letter sound and then showing youngsters how to blend those sounds together to make words. Teaching assistants will receive training on the Project X Code intervention which is to be used with targeted children within each school.

And Year 1 and Year 2 class teachers will have a day of professional development each term, to help them understand more about the programme and to reflect what they are doing in the classroom.

An annual conference for literacy subject leaders will be held to look at good teaching and how to monitor the success children are having in reading.

There will be an annual headteacher conference.

Mr Dowrick said: “Having worked with schools across the country, there are certain particularly successful practices we would like to share with them and think about whether they are suitable for these schools.

“At this conference we would expect there to be lots of case studies of very successful practice.

“Although there is a need for this campaign, there are some very good schools in Oxfordshire already and this is a chance for headteachers to share the things that have worked. I really do think it will be successful.”

Schools have until October 19 to sign up to the campaign, and it is anticipated that the training will start in November, at dates and venues to be determined once all invited schools have replied.

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