Literacy and Numeracy

Literacy at LPS

At Lancefield Primary School we focus on strengthening all students to become competent and confident learners across all modes of Literacy - Reading and Viewing, Writing and Speaking and Listening. Our students are involved in a minimum of 10 hours of literacy learning each week.

In our classrooms we focus on delivering our teaching and learning based on Structured Literacy (an evidence-based best practice approach for teaching foundational literacy skills) and follow our Literacy Block Model, with clear Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. Every teacher uses explicit, direct instruction to facilitate the teaching and learning of English across the three strands of the Victorian Curriculum - Language, Literature and Literacy.

Reading at Lancefield Primary School focuses on teaching our students the five essential components of reading, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension. Throughout the week students engage with learning to encompass all of these crucial components through a range of programs and tasks such as:

·       Jolly Phonics

·       Jolly Grammar

·       Heart Words

·       High Frequency Words

·       Reader’s Theatre and partner reading to strengthen fluency

·       Explicit vocabulary sessions

·       Whole class reading to develop and build prior knowledge to support and enhance reading comprehension

·       Independent reading to build stamina and apply reading skills 

Writing at Lancefield Primary School focuses on teaching our students to become fluent, efficient and creative writers. Throughout the week students engage with a range of learning experiences to strengthen their writing skills such as:

·       Jolly Phonics

·       Jolly Grammar

·       Seven Steps to Writing Success 

·       Handwriting and typing

·       Sentence level work, to develop the foundations of writing 

·       Spelling of high frequency words

·       Grammar and word study

·       Genre writing sessions, to develop the structure and different expectations of text types e.g. narratives and persuasive

·       Editing practices

Speaking & Listening at Lancefield Primary School focuses on teaching our students the skills to become quality listeners and confident speakers. Students in our classrooms are provided with daily opportunities and explicit teaching to become proficient at speaking and listening through the following experiences:

·       Jolly Phonics

·       Rhyming and singing

·       Daily morning circles

·       Oral fluency practice

·       Oral presentations

Numeracy at LPS

Lancefield Primary School has a commitment to providing all students with quality mathematics instruction that caters to the individual point of need. Teachers use a range of assessment tools (such as Essential Assessment) to guide their planning and teaching. All students participate in a daily maths lesson.

Maths lessons are varied and include hands-on tasks, open-ended questioning, and a wide array of manipulatives.

Maths lessons follow the instructional model that is used in all classes across the school:

Warm Up- a quick and fun maths game to engage the students and get their brains ready for learning. These activities include revisiting previously taught concepts to allow further practice of skills and knowledge.

I Do- teacher explicitly teaches and models skills that are the focus for the lesson.

We Do- students attempt problems posed by the teacher with assistance and scaffolding.

You Do- learnt concepts and skills put into practice. Individual (or small group) stamina work. Differentiation of tasks occurs at this stage to allow for individual point of need.

Reflection- teacher and students discuss the learning that has occurred, share feedback, strategies, and wonderings

Maths topics are connected to the three areas of Maths in the Victorian Curriculum: Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry and Statistics and Probability

To support the development of concepts we have introduced Skills and Drills daily sessions across the school. This is a daily 15 minute session of repeated exposure to fundamental skills (eg. addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, problem solving etc)

Chromebooks are a tool used to support and extend learning and to present maths concepts in a variety of ways.

Numeracy is fundamental to a student’s ability to learn at school and to engage productively in society. Students become numerate as they develop the knowledge and skills to use mathematics confidently across learning areas at school and in their lives more broadly.