English

All students at Branxholme Wallacedale Community School have at least two hours of literacy education every day including reading, writing, and speaking and listening.

Teachers closely monitor progress of students to ensure teaching is at the point of need and success is experienced by all students. We have a strong education support program and all children, regardless of year level, who need extra assistance or extension are given the opportunity to work one on one with one of our experienced staff.

We believe that to ensure all students succeed and thrive we need to use the Science of Reading, evidence-based teaching approach. This approach is an explicit and systematic teaching of fundamental knowledge that provides the best possible environment for all students to develop the ability to read, write and understand.

The Sounds Write and The Writing Revolution programs are implemented across the school to assist the development of reading and writing strategies and ensure a consistent whole school approach to literacy development.

Our structured reading and writing approach includes all the components of the Big 6:
oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

• Explicit teaching of phonological awareness and phonics (Sounds Write)
• Guided practice to improve fluency, the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression
• Vocabulary development, providing essential background knowledge for reading and writing.
• Structured morphology from Foundation to Grade 6
• Explicit teaching of comprehension strategies
• Explicit teaching of Spelling Rules (Spelling Mastery)
• Grammar, a whole school approach that allows students to gain knowledge and understandings

Reading for enjoyment and knowledge acquisition is important at Branxholme Wallacedale Community School. Students have access to decodable texts that they can practice at school and home. These readers allow students to practice the sound-spelling relationships and use the decoding skills taught in phonic lessons.

Our school and MARC libraries are stocked with a range of current exciting books, our involvement with Book Club provides ongoing up to date books for students to access easily. We use high quality texts for novel studies, with students having access to their own copy.

Our teachers believe in our system, they are well versed in it and teach it in a thorough and professional way.

We believe in our literacy teaching. Our program has been put together with care and integrity, it is comprehensive and intensive, and we have seen it succeed with a range of students, including those for whom literacy is a considerable challenge.

The school offers all the above, but then something much more…

We are in a unique position to cater for the needs of individual students.