£7m National Support Programme for the literacy and numeracy in Wales

A £7 million national support programme for the Literacy and Numeracy Framework to help schools drive up standards of literacy and numeracy across all subjects in the curriculum has been launched by Welsh Labour’s Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton Andrews.

The final Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF), which was published today on the Learning Wales website, will support curriculum planning and also help teachers to monitor pupils’ progress in literacy and numeracy against clear annual expectations for all learners aged 5 to 14. The new £7 million National Support Programme (NSP) will support schools in implementing the LNF, offering specialist, additional, support to help teachers, headteachers and learning and teaching assistants. The NSP will be funded by the Welsh Government to offer direct support to schools and teachers at no charge to schools.

The LNF will help schools identify how best to challenge and support all of their learners, while giving teachers, parents and carers a clearer and more consistent picture of a pupil’s progress and ability. The literacy component of the LNF sets out expected levels of pupil achievement in reading, writing and oracy whilst the numeracy component outlines expectations for developing numerical reasoning and using number, data and measuring skills.

Both primary and secondary schools will use the LNF as a curriculum planning tool, embedding the teaching of literacy and numeracy skills into all subjects not just English, Welsh and Maths. A suite of online bilingual guidance and training materials, the first set of which – curriculum planning guidance and training materials – are available on the Learning Wales website from today, will help schools and teachers implement the LNF before it becomes statutory for pupils from Reception to Year 9 in September this year.　

Assessment against the LNF will become a statutory requirement from September 2014. Meanwhile, national reading and numeracy tests, which will help schools in assessing pupils’ standards of reading and numeracy, will be taken by pupils from Year 2 to Year 9 from May 2013.