Project Report Summary
This report outlines the outcomes and insights from a targeted literacy programme delivered across a cluster of four schools, involving 23 individual staff members. The online Literacy for Learning CPD programme was developed in partnership between the National Literacy Trust( NLT) and the Southern Universities Network( SUN). It focused on developing the teaching of literacy in secondary schools to improve outcomes for students and build a sustainable literacy community of practice for teachers.
Spanning two academic years( April 2024 – January 2025), the programme’ s structure enabled participating staff to build and apply literacy knowledge progressively. The core training sessions focused on disciplinary literacy and building vocabulary and culminated in a practitioner-led showcase in January 2025. Park Community School reported significant improvements in student vocabulary use and increased confidence in reading strategies in Humanities subjects, with plans to extend these strategies into Maths and Science, demonstrating the programme’ s ongoing reach and adaptability.
A key success is the continued dissemination of literacy strategies and best practice through the Havant Literacy Federation, extending the programme’ s impact beyond the participating schools and serving as a legacy platform for ongoing collaboration. Although evaluation data is limited due to the small number of schools, continued engagement and participation in the programme across 2024-25 demonstrates that the training was useful and impactful. At an approximate cost of £ 152 per participant, this proved to be a costeffective and impactful pilot programme.
Key recommendations for future developments include:
• Integrating this programme with existing regional literacy networks to identify schools already working collaboratively.
• Partnering with a large Academy Trust to facilitate the programme across multiple schools.
• Hosting the introductory and showcase sessions in-person to foster collaboration and improve evaluation response rates.
• Expanding future versions of this programme with the NLT to focus on writing or oracy skills to broaden outcomes.
Introduction
This online programme was delivered by the National Literacy Trust( NLT) in partnership with the Southern Universities Network( SUN). The initiative and appetite for a sustained literacy CPD programme emerged following discussions at the Uni Connect Literacy Network, where the NLT outlined research related to the educational literacy gap, together with the benefits of teacher CPD in improving outcomes for disadvantaged young people. The literacy gap, and the need to address it, is evident through the following statistics shared by the NLT at this initial network meeting:
• Only 44 % of disadvantaged students met the expected standard( combined reading, writing and Maths) in 2023, compared with 66 % of other students
• 1 / 3 of 16-year-olds left school without achieving a grade 4 or above in English Language
• 25 % of employers are not satisfied with school leaver’ s literacy and numeracy skills( CBI & Pearson 2019)
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