Can You See the Difference? Early Impacts of the Primary National Literacy Strategy on Four Secondary English Departments

As schools adapt to the Key Stage 3 Literacy Strategy, this paper looks at early impacts upon secondary English departments of the primary National Literacy Strategy (NLS). Since 1999, pupils with increasing experience of the primary NLS have been entering secondary schools. This paper focuses upon four secondary English departments at three points in time: early in the first year in which secondary schools received Y7 students who had experienced the NLS (autumn 1999), towards the end of the same school year (July 2000) and five terms later (spring 2002). The paper looks for shifts over time in departmental policy and practice across the primary/secondary transfer that may relate to the impact of the primary NLS. Of the two major findings from rounds one and two of interviews, one was confirmed by the third round of interviews and one was not. The persistent finding was that greater success with post-NLS students in Y7 was experienced by the English department that already practised high levels of liaison with feeder primary schools and worked positively to publicise their literacy practices across their own school's other subject departments. However, over the three years, the four departments grew more varied in their preparation for, and responses to, receiving students from the primary NLS. This suggests that English departments are operating their responses to the primary NLS with a fair degree of autonomy.