English Hub

Background to the English Hubs programme

 

In the Spring of 2018, the Department for Education (DfE) identified and invited 924 schools that met a number of eligibility criteria to apply to become an accredited English Hub as part of a new national initiative to drive up standards in literacy.  In the Autumn of 2018, following a competitive application and selection process, the DfE announced that 34 schools across England had been identified to take on this role.

 

Orgill Primary School is very proud to be one of those Hub schools and we are excited by the opportunities that this offers to schools in Cumbria and wider areas.

 

In the words of the DfE, each English Hub will:

 

'...promote a love of reading and support schools across the country to provide excellent phonics and early language teaching.  Literacy specialists within each hub will provide tailored support to schools.  This will include running events to showcase excellent practice in teaching reading and working with local schools to develop their practice.'

 

Department for Education (DfE), October 2018

Aims of the English Hubs Programme

 

All support offered by the English Hubs across the country will promote the Department for Education's three priority areas:

 

1. Early language development:  providing evidence based approaches to early language development and closing the word gap in school-based early years settings, including appropriate use of formative assessment.

 

2. Age-appropriate phonics provision:  encouraging best practice in systematic synthetic phonics teaching from school-based early years provision to the end of Key Stage 1, and as the primary reading strategy throughout the school.  This includes:

• encouraging fidelity to a single systematic synthetic phonics programme;
• supporting the effective use of decodable books in the early stages of learning to read, as a way of establishing phonic decoding;
• supporting effective practice in formative assessment in relation to phonics/early reading.

 

3. Promoting a love of reading:  encouraging reading for enjoyment including by supporting whole school reading approaches, reading to children at least once a day and encouraging reading at home, developing teachers' knowledge of appropriate children's literature.