Thursday, November 11, 2022
Lexonik Secures DfE Grant to Accelerate 16-19-Year-Old Literacy Learning
Lexonik, has become one of just a handful of UK companies to secure a specialist education delivery grant from the Department for Education (DfE).
The award-winning firm, which is based in Cleveland Street, Middlesbrough, has been selected to provide teacher-targeted interventions which will help 16-19-year-olds attain higher outcomes in English and literacy skills.
Lexonik, which was founded in 2011, is already renowned for working with schools and educational outlets throughout the UK. It will now be implementing an expected three-year programme in which it will train a total of 160 teachers across 20 colleges.
Staff at the identified colleges – all within the North East & Yorkshire / Humber region – will receive specialist Continual Professional Development (CPD) training based on Lexonik’s literacy learning techniques as well as fully-funded access to Lexonik’s targeted intervention programmes to progress students reading, which is often the barrier to a GCSE pass.
As a result, some 8,000 students can be expected to benefit over the next three years*.
Sarah Ledger, CEO of Lexonik, said: “As a Teesside company, committed to improving the literacy skills of students throughout the North East, we are delighted to secure our first significant grant from the Department For Education.
“This expected three-year commitment will have an exceptionally positive impact for teaching staff, for students, and for the community as a whole, given the improved potential for those young people aged 16-19 to access the kind of employment they are keen to commence.”
She added: “Our delivery involves intervention programmes and professional development directly with teachers, who in turn use their learned skills on literacy and vocabulary, to aid the educational journey of students who are aged 16-19 and embarking on GCSE English resits.
“Our programme of work will see staff having face-to-face time with our regional trainers, as well as accessing our Lexonik Cloud and literacy intervention programmes.
Lexonik currently work with 300+ schools with an approximate student data set of 90,000. Their Advance and Flex products have been found by two independent impact evaluations (carried out by the National Literacy Trust and Northumbria University), to rapidly improve students' decoding, reading, spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension as well as teachers' practice and confidence supporting students' reading. Cumulatively, these have resulted in average reading age gains of 27 months in just six one-hour sessions.
The new grant will commence in November.
Sarah and her leadership team continue to expand their reach and are always keen to hear from other educational outlets eager to utilise their services as part of their continual professional development.
*based on 1:25 in class, 2 classes per teacher
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