Page 35 - The East Sussex Way

Case Study 3: Promoting Academic Vocabulary

• Bexhill Academy is a large secondary with just over

1500 students.
• Approximately 20% of pupils are identiÞ ed as
having literacy skills signiÞ cantly below age-related
expectations.
• Approximate number of SEND: 26%
• The number of pupils eligible for Pupil Premium is 32%

The context

Pupils needed to broaden their vocabulary and their ability to discuss
texts in a more academic and sophisticated way. A particular need
was identiÞ ed to address the vocabulary deÞ cit in a lower ability Year
10 GCSE group of 20 pupils. Five pieces of sophisticated vocabulary
were selected, linked to an English topic (An Inspector Calls) which
were chosen as a focus for the term:

• capitalist
• socialist
• omnipotent
• moral
• penitent

Action taken

Lesson starter activities were planned to ensure pupils engaged
with the vocabulary recurrently in order to embed it, and their
understanding at different points was measured. Here, similarities
could be drawn with Paul Nation’s approach (Nation, 1990).

Pupils’ Þ rst encounter with the vocabulary was a mix and match
activity, to check whether they could identify the deÞ nitions of each

word. At this point, no pupils were able to correctly identify the
deÞ nitions for all Þ ve words. Each subsequent, planned encounter
with the target vocabulary encouraged pupils to engage with the
words in a different way. These terms were also used in the teaching
across the period to ensure maximum exposure to the vocabulary.

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