Case Study
Northern Education Trust
Building the relationship to deliver trust-wide consistency and confidence
In November 2020, Northern Education Trust (NET) initiated their Trust-wide partnership with Lexonik, ensuring their consistency in approach to literacy interventions, teaching and progress across the Trust, as well as strategically aligning assessments with intervention solutions.
The journey to this Trust-wide partnership began with developing close relationships with key members of SLT. Northern Education Trust saw the impact of Lexonik Advance and Lexonik Leap in 11 schools initially and engaged in consultative conversations with the Directors at Lexonik, exploring an intervention map, using NGRT data from GL Assessment to identify intervention pathways and exploring the strategic solutions Lexonik could offer.
Alexandra Forsyth, Vice Principal at North Shore Academy, explains, “The Trust leadership team recognised that we needed to improve the consistency in our approach to reading assessment and tuition across the Trust. We needed to be serving our students with a more uniformed approach, in particular around reading, which was an area where we recognised that a number of our young people were having less than perfect outcomes.”
37-60 months range of reading age gains at North Shore Academy15-28 points range of standardised score increase at North Shore Academy
Key outcomes
- Reading ages increased by 37-60 months across the three groups and standardised scores increased by 15-28 points.
- “It unmistakably builds confidence and makes students feel more resilient. They’re working out ways to decode words for themselves which produces a level of assertiveness and pride."
- “What we then see with that increased confidence is children managing their behaviour better and coping with other aspects of the curriculum. What more could a teacher want for their students?”
Alexandra Forsyth – Vice Principal at North Shore Academy
Immediate impact
Alexandra said: “The results have been quite phenomenal, and the confidence and resilience this has built in our students is something we could never have expected.”
NET's North Shore Academy is a case in point. After testing with NGRT, students were placed in three intervention groups who followed the Lexonik Advance programme from September to December 2021. Over this relatively short period, the average reading age increased by 37-60 months across the three groups and the average standardised score increased by 15-28 points.
Alexandra’s positive verdict is shared by her colleagues. She says the approach absolutely confirms the idea that when learning capacity is improved, so does the personal level of self-esteem and self-belief in that child.
Alexandra continues;
“We were blown away by how quickly Lexonik Advance showed us the success across the Trust. We had high expectations, but we were new to the concept of a reading intervention and were not sure of the results we might expect. It unmistakably builds confidence and makes students feel more resilient. They’re working out ways to decode words for themselves which produces a level of assertiveness and pride.
“What we then see, with that increased confidence, is children managing their behaviour better and coping with other aspects of the curriculum. What more could a teacher want for their students?”
Everyone on board
Lexonik consult with schools on a daily basis and stress the importance of ensuring interventions don’t just remain in the intervention classroom. All teachers need the skill, confidence and toolkit to explicitly teach key reading, vocabulary and spelling strategies, which results in improved quality-first teaching. NET therefore also began using Lexonik Vocabulary, Lexonik’s whole-school cloud-based programme, which connects the dots between what is learned in intervention and the classroom, as well as equipping all staff and students with the knowledge and skills necessary to comprehend academic vocabulary independently and at the point of need.
Staff training and confidence was also essential throughout this development, not only for those delivering the interventions, which is in the capable hands of the Lexonik Regional Trainers, but the training and confidence of all staff. We are not all English teachers, and most staff in the secondary sphere have little to no initial training in teaching reading, vocabulary, comprehension and spelling, so the whole-school CPD Lexonik delivered across all schools was invaluable.
Of equal importance to Northern Education Trust has been ensuring that the use of the intervention approach is perceived as fitting and favourable, not only with students but with their parents and, naturally, staff across the academies.
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