Literacy Planning to Plenaries
Literacy - Planning to Plenaries
When planning literacy lessons it's important to establish the skills which you want to make the focus of the lesson. These skills may be Talking and Listening, Reading or Writing and, if assessing these skills, you should refer to CCEA's Levels of Progression which have been linked below. The focus of your lesson will dictate the expected learning intentions.
Planning your lesson will include planning lesson starters, the main part of the lesson, pupil input and the plenary including any assessment for learning. Planning the questions which you wish to use should form part of your planning also.
Planning the Skills to be Taught
CCEA have created a 'one stop shop' called the Interactive Levels of Progression. It brings together the Levels of Progression, the Expansion documents as well as the Ready Reckoners in one easy to navigate system. The resource is designed to fully support the progression of skills.
Teachers can choose a mode, select a requirement and have a choice to either move between the full range of levels from the Q Skills through to Level 7, or select specific levels as a focus. Teachers can also view related tasks and exemplification linked to the requirement they have selected.
These resources can help teachers to plan for differentiation and whilst the levels provide a broad overview, more specific planning can take place using the Ready Reckoners.
Success Criteria Cards have also been created to help teachers plan the success criteria for lessons.
CCEA Levels of Progression
Here you can easily browse the Levels of Progression and view related resources.
Success Criteria Cards
Success criteria expand on the learning intentions. They specify a set of conditions that pupils must meet. Success criteria clarify key factors that can be used to indicate where, or to what extent, the pupils have achieved their learning intentions.
Planning your Lesson
The Revised 5 Minute Lesson Plan
This video deals with:
pupil engagement
pupil activity
differentiation
AfL
plenary
Active Learning
This video is a reminder that students learn better when the learning is active. You should seek to incorporate aspects of this into your planned lessons.
Checklist for an Effective Lesson
This resources provides you with a checklist for the following:
planning
start of the lesson
during the lesson
end of the lesson
Lesson plan checklist (1).docxDeveloping Oracy Skills Across the Curriculum
Oracy
This presentation can be used as part of your own professional learning journey or to support staff development within your school.
The skill of oracy can be found in the Talking and Listening mode within Communication across the Curriculum so the Levels of Progression should be referred when you are planning to develop this skill.
Objectives
to provide an understanding of the importance of developing oracy skills across the curriculum
to introduce you to a range of practical oracy strategies
Using Media to Support Literacy Lessons
The Literacy Shed
A website for teachers filled with ideas for teaching literacy using visual resources such as film, animation, photographs and picture books.
Into Film
Into Film gives every child and young person aged 5 to 19 in the UK the chance to experience film creatively.
Creative Story Writing Starters
The seven dramatised clips may be used to spark creative thought about story writing whether that's in relation to the plot, setting or characters. They might also be used to develop Talking and Listening Skills.
Using Picture Books
Exploring Words and Sentence Structure
Super Sentences
This videos introduces you to seven strategies which pupils may use to improve their sentences and enhance their creative writing skills at sentence level.
The strategies are suitable for pupils at Primary level who are beginning to add supporting detail into their writing or for older pupils with additional learning needs.
Creative Writing
The link provided takes you to 'Vocabulary and language activities' section within this Creative Writing web page.
To expand their narrative skills, pupils need a varied and precise vocabulary and the freedom to play with language.
This section has a range of activities designed to help your pupils to think about words.
The activities will encourage them to become interested in the relationships between words and the emotional colour and intensity of synonyms. You could use these as starter activities or as independent work. The activities can help your pupils to develop and extend their vocabulary and use it meaningfully.
Plenaries
A plenary at the end of a lesson or a mini-plenary staged throughout the lesson should be planned for. Plenaries enable you to assess the understanding of the whole class so differentiation should be considered too. Any misunderstandings or issues should be identified and dealt with, either at the end of the lesson or in your follow up lessons.
Plenaries also enable metacognition to be developed amongst your pupils and provide a time when pupils can reflect on their own thinking processes and their learning.
All too often plenaries are rushed but they are an important part of the lesson and, when planned and focussed, they enable pupils to develop a common language about thinking and learning.
Active Learning and Teaching Methods for Key Stages 1 and 2
Published by CCEA, this resource provides teachers with a range of strategies which can be implemented not just into lessons but also adapted for plenaries. These ideas are applicable for use across all areas of the Northern Ireland Curriculum. Active Learning and Teaching Methods for Key Stages 1 and 2.pdfActive Learning and Teaching Methods for Key Stage 3.pdfActive Learning and Teaching Methods for Key Stage 3
Planning for Purposeful Plenaries
This website provides you with 5 ideas for purposeful plenaries.
Metacognition: Thinking about Thinking and Learning
This CCEA presentation explores metacognition across the curriculum and from slide 9 onwards, explains how plenaries are an essential part of developing 'thinking about thinking' with your pupils.
This presentation can be used for your own professional development or to support staff development within your school.
Objectives:
understand what is meant by ‘metacognition’;
know a range of strategies for promoting metacognition in the classroom; and
be able to plan and run an effective plenary session.