STJL Literacy Audit
St John Lloyd
Catholic Comprehensive School
Literacy across the curriculum – self-evaluation audit
The purpose of this document is:
 To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses relating to how Literacy is integrated into all
aspects of the school curriculum.
 To gain an overview of each department and curriculum areas’ approach to Literacy
across the school. This audit will recognise successes and examples of best practice, as
well as identifying areas that require further support and development.
 To help you identify areas that ESTYN, as a mandatory line of inquiry, will assess when
addressing Key Questions 1 (1.4) and 2 (1.2) during a school inspection.
It would be extremely helpful if you could complete the following audit relating to your
curriculum/ leadership area and return it to me by: October half-term 2011
All comments/ suggestions and support are very much appreciated. Many thanks, Laura 
Department/ leadership area:
1STJL
Audit completed by:
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
What is Literacy across the curriculum and how can I identify its use in my curriculum/ leadership area?
Literacy in its most basic form is the ability to read and write. An audit of this practice across the curriculum involves
the accounting for, and identifying of, examples of these abilities being used and developed effectively across the
whole school.
Literacy and the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’:
The ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’ highlights the key literacy areas that will be targeted and assessed during an
ESTYN inspection; the expectations in this area are clearly mapped out within the framework and I have summarised
them within this document to help you identify areas for development within your department.
Identifying Literacy in my subject/ leadership area:
The grid attached to this audit will help you recognise where Literacy is drawn upon on a daily basis within your
subject/ leadership area. Simply tick/ cross or comment where necessary on the highlighted Literacy feature.
Oracy supporting Literacy:
‘Talking to Learn’ is a proven primary learning strategy that supports a child’s Literacy development; as such, this audit
also aims to identify areas of best practice relating to the effective use of speaking and listening strategies across the
school. Again, the grids below provide examples and ideas for you, which should make this process both clear and
productive.
Many thanks for your time and support here! Laura 
2STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Audit:
As a department/ leadership area, are the following Literacy objectives mapped into your schemes of work?
Spelling &
Vocabulary
Speaking &
Listening
Reading
Writing
Yr 7
Yr 8
Yr 9
Yr 10
Yr 11
3STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Oracy: Does your department use any resources to support Speaking and Listening? E.g. speaking frames, listening frames,
success criteria, placemats? If so, could you provide a brief explanation of what is used and with which year groups:
Evidence and examples of oracy in use across year groups:
Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
Year 11
4STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Speaking and Listening & the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’ : How has your department incorporated the following
strands of the Communication aspect of the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’’ to support Speaking and Listening?
Fully
Partially
Not
yet
Not relevant to
subject
Developing information and ideas – Listening and responding to others, responding to
questions, contributing to discussions and commenting on others’ viewpoints. Synthesising
and developing arguments in discussions by contributing their viewpoint effectively.
Presenting information and ideas – Communicating ideas on a range of topics and to a
varying audience, drawing upon a broad, as well as subject-specific, vocabulary to
support feedback and individual presentations.
Speaking and listening – teaching strategies: Please indicate how embedded the following teaching strategies are in your
SOW/ programmes of study:
Fully Partially Not Not relevant
yet
to subject
Paired talk/ talking partners
Planned group work
Planned whole class discussion
Think, pair, share activities
Drama in the classroom – improvising and working in role, scripting and
performing, responding to performance
5STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Spelling and Vocabulary:
Please indicate how the following resources and teaching strategies are used to enhance spelling and writing skills as well
as vocabulary development:
Used
often
Used
Used
sometimes occasionally
Not relevant
to subject
Spelling rules/ conventions - such as teaching plurals, prefixes and
suffixes and homophones.
Spelling strategies – such as sounding the word out, syllable counting,
Mnemonics and Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check.
Explicit teaching of key vocabulary and definitions – subject specific
vocabulary is taught and discussed.
Use of glossaries – to aid the recognition of words/ key vocabulary.
Use of dictionaries – to aid the recognition of words/ key vocabulary.
Use of thesauri – to aid the recognition of words/ key vocabulary.
Use of spelling and vocabulary starters - subject specific
Additional comments:
6STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Reading & the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’ : How has your department incorporated the following strands of the
Communication aspect of the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’’ to support reading?
Fully
Partially
Not
yet
Not relevant to
subject
Locating, selecting and using information using reading strategies – pupils are expected to
be able to differentiate between print and picture, decode text, use reading strategies to
select, synthesise and locate key information, summarise information that has been read.
Responding to what has been read – pupils are able to read and discuss texts with/
without an adult’s support, express an opinion relating to what they have learnt and
discuss read texts, showing an appreciation for what they have read.
7STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Reading - Please indicate how the following teaching strategies are used to enhance reading skills in your area:
Used
often
Used
Used
sometimes occasionally
Not relevant
to subject
Sound and symbol (Graphophonic) Cues - Flash cards/ word repetition/
look and say encouragement of unfamiliar words/ phonic recognition/
speed sounds and blending.
Structure/ visual (Bibliographic) Cues – using the layout of books and
everyday life – pictures, titles, headings and captions to isolate and
recognise words.
Syntactic Cues – using spoken language to predict what might follow
(paired, shared and guided reading strategies can be drawn upon here)
Semantic Cues – encouraging readers to read beyond the words they
don’t understand and decode them by relating them to the rest of the
text/ whole passage.
Paired reading – teacher/ pupil or pupil/ pupil pair up and one reads
with the other supporting when reading ‘challenge words’.
Shared reading – teacher/ pupil or pupil/ pupil share the reading of text
by reading sections and then questioning each other and discussing the
text.
Guided reading – the teacher/ TA works in a small group with pupils of
similar reading levels to read and discuss texts.
Individual reading – pupils read a range of texts in dependently.
8STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Higher Order Reading Skills - Please indicate how the following teaching strategies are used to enhance reading skills in
your area:
Used
Used
Used
Not relevant
often sometimes occasionally
to subject
Sequencing – asking students to remember the order of what they have
read to aid understanding.
Skimming and Scanning – asking pupils to read and extract information
quickly from texts.
Dictionary Skills – use of dictionaries and thesauri to aid reading
understanding and develop vocabulary use.
Index Skills – use of systems of organising in books and methods of
classifying information or reading materials.
Inference and deduction – texts chosen that develop the students
understanding beyond the literal. Pupils are asked to assess the
implications of what has been read.
Modelling – using the written structure or style of a text in order to
produce a visual or written response to what has been read – e.g. a
letter, newspaper article or report.
Evaluation – the expectation that students need to reflect upon what
they have read and express reactions to content or style to others in
talk or writing.
Additional comments:
9STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Reading for meaning - Do you use any of the following activities to enhance reading for meaning?
Cloze activities – filling in the gaps of passages with a range of vocabulary choices
Sequencing – using text passages that have been cut-up and asking students to sequence in the correct order
Annotation of text – highlighting/ underlining of key phrases
KWFL (Know, Want to know, Where to Find information, What have you Learnt) grids
QADS (Question, Answer, Details and Source) grid
Comprehension-based reading and understanding tasks
Visualizing to enhance reading for meaning
Shared. Paired and guided reading – Have any members of the department used paired/ shared or guided reading
strategies to discuss text? If so, please explain how:
10
STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Text purposes - Please indicate how the following six text purposes are used to support read and/ or writing skills in
your subject area:
Reading
Yes
No
Writing
Yes
No
Recount – Texts that retell events in time order. Texts that support the who, what,
where, when and how? Newspaper articles, diary entries and stories.
Report (information-based) – Texts that describe the way things are and give specific
information relating to the topic. E.g. a report on habitat in Science, a History report on
daily life in any era, a report on the local area for Geography.
Instruction – Texts giving information on how to do something. E.g. a recipe, a list of
materials or equipment to be used, an experiment flowchart.
Explanation – Texts giving information on how things work or happen, E.g. a flowchart,
a response to how/ what question types.
Persuasion – Texts that argue a viewpoint or try to persuade. E.g. leaflet. Speech, flyer,
articles.
Discussion – Texts that have reasoned arguments in them. E.g. speeches and debates.
Additional Comments:
11
STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Writing and the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’ : How has your department incorporated the following strands of the
Communication aspect of the ‘Skills Framework 3-19 in Wales’’ to support writing?
Fully
Partially
Not
yet
Not relevant to
subject
Organising ideas and information – pupils are expected to plan, organise and present
ideas clearly, they draft and redraft pieces of written work and present ideas in a logical
and effective way.
Writing accurately – pupils are expected to use a wide vocabulary to develop their
writing, they use punctuation and a range of sentence structures to control their written
work and they match their written style to the correct audience and text purpose.
12
STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Writing – please indicate how embedded the following teaching strategies are within the department:
Fully
Partially
Not yet
Not relevant
to subject
Purpose and audience – is clear for writing tasks and students know what
type of text they are writing and for whom it is being written
The six text purposes - (see above) are referred to for specific tasks and
key features are mentioned – e.g. the structure/ layout of the text and
language/ vocabulary expectations for such text types.
Scaffolds – are used to support writing. E.g. writing frames, sentence
starters, writing checklists and success criteria.
Planning – pupils plan their writing before they start the task.
Modelling – the writing process is modelled by the class teacher.
Notemaking – is explicitly taught to support the writing process.
Drafting and re-drafting – is a familiar feature in lessons to support the
development and improving of writing length and skills.
Additional Comments:
13
STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Presentation, punctuation and grammar – please indicate how the following features of writing are targeted in your
department:
Fully
Partially
Not yet Not relevant in
this subject
Presentation – students are encouraged to underline key headings and
cursive/ recognisable handwriting is reinforced in the processing of
written work.
Punctuation control – The need for basic punctuation such as capital
letters, full stops, commas and question marks is encouraged in written
work.
Grammar and expression – The need for the correct use of tense and the
effective control of paragraphing is reinforced in written pieces.
Marking –
Yes
No
Has your department developed a marking policy that
incorporates the assessment of literacy skills?
If yes, please comment:
14
STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Textbooks /schemes of work:
Yes
No
Does your department have schemes of work/textbooks
that have a focus on literacy skills?
If yes, please comment:
Training –
Please give details of any literacy training that members of your department have attended:
15
STJL
LE – September 2011
STJL Literacy Audit
Departmental strengths –
As a department, what are your strengths in the development of literacy skills? (You may wish to draw upon areas of this
document to help you here).
Departmental priorities –
As a department, what are your priorities for the development of literacy skills?
Finally, thank you once again for taking the time to complete this audit, the outcomes of which will target subjectspecific support for literacy.
Many thanks, Laura 
16
STJL
LE – September 2011