What does it look like?
Speaking and Listening

students are given opportunities to develop their thinking through
a range of speaking and listening activities:
- in pairs
- in groups such as jigsaws and rainbows*
 although speaking and listening activities may be used as a
rehearsal for writing, oral work is valued as an outcome and may
be used for assessment purposes.
Reading

students are supported when they need to access texts of all
kinds: a range of reading strategies is taught, such as skimming,
scanning and close reading;
 a range of note-taking and note-making strategies is taught;
 students are taught how to read a range of text types such as
persuasion and instructions;
 DARTs** are used to make challenging texts accessible to most
students.
Writing

there is agreement about approaches to planning across the
school;
 there is explicit teaching and reinforcement of how to write in the
various styles and genres;
 teachers and students are aware of the writing skills required by a
particular task;
 the audience and purpose are clear;
 students are shown models of good examples before starting
their own writing;
 students are given strategies to help them to learn and retain
spellings.
*
Explicit teaching of skills in reading, writing, speaking
and listening underpins the learning experience of
students throughout the day.
* see materials in ‘The Management of Group Talk’ training module
** DARTs such as sequencing and cloze are explained in the module ‘Active Reading
Strategies’.