‘ Frayer model’ to capture student understanding. They included the new vocabulary process in success criteria for spoken and written assessments. These new strategies were also trialled with their lowest prior attaining Year 7 group.
Park Community School also captured teacher voice across the school, in relation to these changed teaching processes and the perceived impact on students. The following teacher feedback displays the significant and valuable impact of the literacy training:
“ It is noticeable in class that students have a broader understanding of these tier 2 words, and their deeper understanding means they are applying them more often without prompting”.
“ The Reading Process forces students to activate their prior knowledge before reading – great for us because there are huge gaps of time between lessons”.
“ Students are keen to read because they like to see if their predictions were correct”.“ This has really helped us see the individual student’ s understanding of key words”.“ It has given students ownership over the word and how they capture it”.
“ Students have something they can refer back to that means something to them, rather than a definition we have provided that later means very little to them”.
“ Students are more investigative as readers. If they don’ t know something they use clues to work it out rather than giving up”.
“ Students get to work together and explore. They really enjoy it”.
Following the training, the NLT distributed an end of programme survey which can be seen at the following link: https:// research. literacytrust. org. uk / s / SouthernUniNetwork / Unfortunately, they did not receive responses.
A Uni Connect Literacy Showcase was held on 19 June 2025, where the NLT outlined the various CPD initiatives delivered in collaboration with Uni Connect partners, including the programmes run with the SUN, KMPF and NEACO. Each of the three Uni Connect partnerships elaborated on the regional specifics of their respective programme and introduced a participating school to present on the impact of taking part.
KMPF’ s programme was represented by the Leigh Academies Trust, and NEACO’ s by Queen Katharine Academy, Peterborough, who shared positive feedback on the impact of taking part in these Uni Connectfunded literacy initiatives.
Findings, Discussion and Outcomes
The SUN and NLT literacy partnership offered a bespoke, targeted and sustained CPD programme, spanning the 2024-25 academic years. 23 individual staff members took part in the programme from Park Community School, King ' s Academy Brune Park( part of GFMAT), Priory School and Admiral Lord Nelson School, reflecting the place-based and targeted approach.
The rationale behind working with a cluster of schools within a local area was to facilitate a regional community of practice for the schools as a platform for literacy collaboration. This intention for the programme was evidenced as a successful outcome, as Park Community School shared research, best practice and a range of literacy strategies from the training across the Havant Literacy Federation. This was a highly successful outcome, enabling the training’ s impact to reach a far wider range of schools.
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