Case Study
Childwall Sports & Science Academy
Visions & Aims
As part of the Lydiate Learning Trust, Childwall Sports and Science Academy embraces the vision to Engage, Enable and Empower all students. Childwall Sports and Science Academy has a mission statement of ‘Learning without Limits’.
Curriculum
Childwall Sports and Science Academy is committed to providing a curriculum that meets the needs of all students so that they are able to realise their full potential.
The curriculum is delivered in a way that:
- Actively seeks to creatively engage, inspire and capture the imagination of learners
- Carefully sequences and presents curriculum content in a way that enables students’ retention and fluent recall of knowledge
- Identifies and addresses gaps in learning and common misconceptions
- Develops students’ reading skills as building blocks of effective learning
- Caters for special educational needs and disabilities at all times
- Explicitly develops students’ study and recall skills, thus empowering them to lead their own learning
Lexonik Advance in Year 9
Lexonik Advance is a research-based programme that fundamentally aims to teach students to develop their phonological awareness through metacognition, repetition, decoding and automaticity.
Lexonik is unique in the sense that students are encouraged to actually understand what they are reading in any context or subject. Links are made between words they may be unfamiliar with, using common prefix, root word and suffix definitions.
It has been claimed that all students, regardless of age or ability, will improve their reading age by +27 months in just six one-hour sessions a week, delivered on a 1:4 teaching ratio. Lexonik have stated that no other programme has made this impact in such a short period of time.
Given that there is a reading gap even within a secondary setting, I measured the impact that Lexonik sessions had on students from years 7-10 to see if such progress was possible.
Sum up your opinion of Lexonik and its impact in 50 words or less:
Lexonik Advance fosters a love of words and seeing students begin to make links between words is so exciting.
The Stories Behind the Stats
Student G
Student G was selected to take part in the Lexonik Advance programme after scoring 92 on his Spring PIRA English assessment.
Student G was also relatively new at school so I thought that working in the smaller group size would be a good way for him to get to know other students. Pre Lexonik, Student G was able to read 38 words out of 55 using the WRAT 5 green assessment. Post Lexonik, Student G was able to read 44 words, taking his new reading age up to 18.9 years, an improvement of 31 months.
Student H
Student H is a SEND student who I selected on the basis of her Spring PIRA English assessment score being 96 and therefore made her suitable to the programme. Pre Lexonik, Student H had a reading age of 14.2 years; slightly above her chronological age. As the weeks went by and the programme progressed, it was evident that she had grown in confidence and was always eager to learn. It was rewarding to see her willing to share her ideas and suggestions, perhaps as a result of working in that smaller group size of four. Post Lexonik, her new reading age was up to 17.6 years; an improvement of 40 months.
Student L
Student L is a SEND & EAL student who was selected to take part in the Lexonik Advance programme. I selected her on the basis that she scored 99 on the PIRA Spring assessment, therefore making her suited to the programme. Pre Lexonik, Student L had a reading age of 9.9 years; significantly below her chronological age. As the weeks progressed, she grew in confidence and was able to develop her ability to decode unfamiliar words. Post Lexonik, her new reading age was 12.1 years, an improvement of 28 months. I think that this highlights how Lexonik is accessible to all learners as Student L still made the expected progress, regardless of speaking English as a second language.
Lexonik will have been a great tool for her to expand her English vocabulary.
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