The headteacher of Little Ilford School in East Ham, a deprived and culturally diverse area, has made it her mission to improve the students' standards in literacy. In a school where a third of pupils who arrive in Year 7 have a Level 3 or below in English, and where ninety per cent of children are learning English as an additional language, raising standards in reading, writing, speaking and listening is never going to be easy. This programme reveals how Yvonne Powell and her senior leadership team have created the school's strong literacy strategy, by combining cross-curricular activities and intervention programmes (including Literacy Progress Units). The programme also outlines the school's current focus on improving pupils' written work and the introduction of `writing skeletons', a series of visual aids for planning different types of non-fiction writing. `Leaders' is the first of four programmes exploring literacy at Little Ilford School.

Video Series: Literacy - The Whole Story
Release Date 2006