The Featherbrook College English program is founded in the Victorian Curriculum.
It incorporates the three modes of:
Reading and Viewing
Reading and Viewing involves students understanding, interpreting, critically analysing, reflecting upon, and enjoying written and visual, print and non-print texts. It encompasses reading and viewing a wide range of texts and media, including literary texts. Reading involves active engagement with texts and the development of knowledge about the relationship between them and the contexts in which they are created. It also involves the development of knowledge about a range of strategies for reading.
Writing involves students in the active process of conceiving, planning, composing, editing and publishing a range of texts. Writing involves using appropriate language for particular purposes or occasions, both formal and informal, to express and represent ideas and experiences, and to reflect on these aspects. It involves the development of knowledge about strategies for writing and the conventions of Standard Australian English. Students develop a metalanguage to discuss language conventions and use.
Speaking and Listening
Speaking and Listening refers to the various formal and informal ways oral language is used to convey and receive meaning. It involves the development and demonstration of knowledge about the appropriate oral language for particular audiences and occasions, including body language and voice. It also involves the development of active-listening strategies and an understanding of the conventions of different spoken texts
Each Language Mode has Strands and Sub-Strands:
Featherbrook College Scope and Sequence documents map how the Victorian Curriculum content is
to be taught over the school year; and across the year levels. Teachers use the scope and sequence
documents to plan with their colleagues ensuring that the lessons planned for the week are specific
to the needs of the students in their class.
In the Primary Years
English is also known as Literacy and it is taught for two hours per day. Each primary year student
engages in one hour of reading and one hour of writing each day.
In the Secondary Years
A secondary year timetable is in place and students attend at least five English sessions per week. In
addition to English there is a Disciplinary Literacy focus across the other secondary year subjects; this
is especially important in subjects such as Science and Humanities where students engage with
subject specific texts.
Both hard copy and digital resources are used in the English program. We have a well-equipped library which each class visits on a regular basis. The library is open at recess and lunchtime throughout the week for students to attend story time, read and borrow. Hard copy book sets are used for small group reading each day and a range of hard copy texts are used as mentor texts within the classroom and for student independent reading.
Digital resources are integrated into the class program and these enable a seamless transition to home learning.
Digital resources currently used include:
• Google Classroom – students from years 3 to 9
• IXL English – students from years prep to 9
• Wushka Cloud Library – students progressing along the Fountas and Pinnell Reading Continuum
• Wheeler Education Cloud Library – students progressing towards the end of the Fountas and Pinnell Reading Continuum and beyond
• Sound Waves Phonics Program – students in years prep to 2