Improving student outcomes with a school-wide literacy plan
A school improvement program prompted leadership to implement changes to improve student outcomes. This included introducing InitiaLit, followed soon after by MacqLit, MiniLit Sage and SpellEx. Since then, the school has built a reputation for high-quality education, ranking 6th in the state for year 3 spelling.
Belmay Primary School is a government school in metropolitan Perth, with over 200 primary school students. It has a reputation for providing high-quality education and producing above-average results in literacy and numeracy, which has now made it a school of choice in the local community.
However, when principal Sarah Durham first arrived at the school in 2018, she found widespread uncertainty among the teaching staff about how to improve student achievement. Student outcomes were low, and enrolments were dropping as a result. The school faced significant challenges, with a large proportion of students from non-English speaking backgrounds, and with higher levels of socio-educational disadvantage in the community. These factors were often used to dismiss low performance in literacy. Belmay’s leadership team soon reached a shared teaching vision for change.
After joining the Fogarty EDvance School Improvement Program, the leadership team felt inspired and supported to implement an evidence-based model to improve student outcomes.
As part of this shift, Belmay adopted a suite of MultiLit’s literacy programs, starting with the rollout of InitiaLit to address the Response to Intervention (or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) framework. Introducing a whole-class, evidence-based literacy program ensured students’ needs were addressed, and low-progress readers were identified early so they could receive support.
Following their success with InitiaLit, Belmay introduced MultiLit’s SpellEx program in 2023 to address spelling and other advanced literacy needs in the upper primary years.
“Reading, spelling and writing are intricately connected,” said Ms Durham. “We are keen to ensure our students develop really strong spelling skills, so they are well-equipped for the literacy demands of secondary school.”
Belmay’s leadership team has credited the implementation of InitiaLit as the backbone of the school’s literacy approach, enabling significant improvement in student NAPLAN reading and spelling outcomes.