
Last year, National Literacy Trust research into children and young people’s writing uncovered that just 26% of key stage 3 students said they enjoyed writing in their free time, the lowest level ever recorded by the charity (Clark et al, 2024).
This put concrete numbers to a reality already concerningly familiar to many teachers.
Co-op Academy Stoke-on-Trent is working towards embedding a writing culture which reflects twin goals – encouraging students to understand the academic importance of developing their writing skills, and to engage with writing for pleasure in a way that works for them.
Our city experiences high levels of deprivation, with 31 of the city’s 41 wards identified as having among the highest literacy vulnerability in the whole of the UK (NLT, 2016), and 51% of our school’s students are eligible for Pupil Premium. Students may transition to the school with low levels of attendance, of which one consequence is that basic reading and writing skills are often not secure.
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