The relevance of the literacy and English curriculum

Across settings and schools, staff provide a relevant and motivating curriculum, in and beyond the classroom. In outdoor education, children develop their literacy and English skills well, for example, creating safety advice for learning outdoors.

Children and young people engage in literacy and English activities in relevant contexts, such as writing to local services about issues that affect them. These activities motivate children and provide them with a clear purpose to their learning. However, teachers should ensure that children and young people are able to consistently apply skills they have learned during literacy and English lessons. This could help them to apply their learning across the curriculum and link to the world of work.

What is working well

In settings and primary schools, staff consult with children regularly about what they would like to learn. Children and young people across most sectors are asked which texts they would like to read. Reading texts of their choosing helps to make the literacy and English curriculum meaningful and relevant. In primary schools, children often develop their grammar, spelling and punctuation skills through discrete lessons. However, they do not always transfer the skills learned in these lessons to their writing in relevant contexts.

Practitioners in settings are developing literacy-rich environments, indoors and outdoors, in which children play and learn, while developing their listening and talking, reading and writing skills. They provide provocations which make learning meaningful and relevant for children, such as shopping lists in role-play areas and recipe books in mud kitchens. Through this, children are beginning to understand different types of texts through real-life purposes. They are being exposed to a wide range of vocabulary and using words in new contexts.

Children and young people in all sectors benefit from regular visits to the local community, such as shops and care homes. This brings learning opportunities alive for children as they engage in listening and talking through conversation. In primary and secondary schools, children and young people have opportunities to practise and develop their writing skills in learning experiences linked to other curricular areas. For example, they create fact files about local history or write letters to local businesses requesting information or thank you letters following visits. In the best examples in special schools, teachers plan learning which links across the curriculum, taking account of how to make the learning accessible for all.

Across Scotland, practitioners and teachers plan a curriculum in which children and young people are developing skills for life, learning and work. Younger children are developing their listening and talking skills and confidence as they ask questions to find out about people’s jobs, such as firefighters and nurses. Older children and young people make presentations to peers and adults or lead initiatives within the school, such as reading groups or promoting the library. This develops their skills of communication and cooperation.

Across Scotland, children and young people benefit from learning about Scots language through texts, stories and songs. This is usually during cultural celebrations, such as Robert Burns’ birthday and St Andrew’s Day. Children enjoy learning and reciting Scots poems and songs, reading texts written in Scots or learning about Scottish authors. In secondary schools, most young people working at Broad General Education (BGE) often study texts with a Scottish theme or context. Young people in the senior phase study courses which include mandatory Scottish set texts.

Challenges to address

Across all sectors, staff need to ensure that children and young people understand the skills they are developing through their literacy and English curriculum. Teachers need to support children and young people to transfer the skills they have learned in discrete literacy lessons to their wider work.

Children and young people would benefit from regular opportunities to discuss the skills they are developing and how these relate to their learning across other curriculum areas, their life and future work. This should help them to make connections between their experiences and the relevance of literacy to their daily lives.

Across the BGE in all sectors, staff need to ensure that children experience progression in their learning of Scots language. They need to ensure that robust information about texts used is passed between stages so that practitioners and teachers build on children’s previous knowledge and avoid repetition.