Leading Literacy: Starting my journey as a Literacy Lead in an inner-London school

I just got a promotion to Team Leader of Literacy in an inner-London secondary school and I’m buzzing. Now I’m just thinking of all of the possibilities and envisioning how I’m going to make the most of this incredible opportunity!

My first thought: What even is a Literacy Lead?

Don’t mistake this question for incompetence! Obviously I know what a Literacy Lead is, having just done a full day interviewing, presenting, and teaching, in order to get the post!

But I think it’s not actually completely obvious what the scope of the job is, and I think that it’s a privilege to have a role where this isn’t immediately obvious — partly because it implies autonomy and the capacity to do something really significant.

As an initial ‘low-res’ mission statement: I want to encourage a reading culture, improve writing outcomes, support the expression of spoken language, and develop listening skills across the whole school. I want to see disciplinary literacy across every subject and feel that students of all levels have benefitted from the provision that we can offer.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

I suppose I should probably formulate a ‘snappier’ vision statement at some point, but that’s the thing that first pops…