At Kelmscott Primary School, we understand that the explicit teaching of Literacy and Numeracy is fundamental to children's development and functioning in society. At KPS we teach literacy and numeracy in daily blocks that are targeted to meet the learning needs of each individual.
Literacy
The KPS Literacy Block typically runs for two hours each day. Each of these blocks begins with a daily warm up, which is a fast paced, engaging session that requires a recite, recall and apply component. Research indicates that this will ensure that our students retain key concepts into their long term memory. We utilise the 'Letters and Sounds' phonics approach to systematically and explicitly teach students the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling through a progam that students progress though in the early years of schooling. This is complemented by the direct instruction program 'Heggerty' which is our phonemic awareness program for K/PP/Yr1.
Within the upper years, students are involved in the Spelling Mastery program, which is a research proven program that uses evidence-based direct instruction methods that combine phonemic, morphemic and whole world instruction to make spelling easier to learn, leading the way to more effective writing.
Our whole school writing approach is Talk4Writing, which is based on cutting edge research that enables children to learn by imitating the language they need for a topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and writing their own version. This approach has been used at KPS for 6 years and is well embedded across the school.
Numeracy
Students at Kelmscott Primary School participate in the 'Prime Mathematics' program. This approach is proven to be the world's best practice based on the effective teaching and learning practices of Singapore, Republic of Korea and Hong Kong - consistent top performers in international studies. At KPS every child from PP-Year 6 is involved in daily 'Prime Time' lessons where they're immersed in this approach that is targeted at and above their ability level.