Literacy Spotlight – Launceston College, Cornwall

Our Star School for May is…

Launceston College, Cornwall!

We spoke to Zoe Brundell, English Teacher and Attainment & Intervention Lead, who shared how Launceston has embedded Lexia PowerUp Literacy into the timetable and created a culture of praise that keeps students motivated and on track.

How did you first come across the Lexia program and what led to the school’s final decision to purchase?

So we’ve had it for several years actually, but for a while, we weren’t really doing that much with it.

Then we decided maybe two or three years ago to give it a good go and in the last two, we’ve managed to convince leadership to dedicate the time needed to the programme to make it work.

We really liked the fact that it was student friendly. It’s not pitched too high and it looks like a game to them – so it’s fun! Since we’ve managed to convince everyone that it’s worth spending the time on the timetable, it’s taken off!

What do you feel makes Lexia stand apart from other reading skills software products on the market?

Firstly, the ease of use. The students can use it without much supervision. As teachers, we’re in the room giving lots of praise and deliver the skill builders. It’s student friendly – simple and straightforward for them to use by themselves.

It helps us support them with things that they are finding difficult. So when we go in and look at kind of the breakdowns in the back end, you can see where it is that they’re struggling or what they’re maybe of what trying to avoid doing.

It’s also great for just being able to give praise and celebrate those students who maybe don’t get that positive reinforcement as much. Because we award them for all sorts of things to do with Lexia, it’s just such a positive experience for them. They’re improving and they’re getting recognised for it. They’re often students that have struggled and not found much success in other places. So, to see it working with them and having evidence of that on the screen in front of them is really, really helpful and makes them feel  good about themselves, their progress and their journey.

How is Lexia used in your school? 

We select students to participate Lexia based on their reading age. They take a reading age test each year, and anyone significantly below their chronological age is selected for Lexia.

We timetable it so they have three hours a week on Lexia. Two of their English lessons are dedicated to Lexia, while the other two follow the normal curriculum. They also have one hour taken from their languages lessons—so instead of doing French or Spanish, they spend that time on Lexia as well. Our languages department has been incredibly supportive. They’ve said for a long time that if these students can’t access English properly, they’re going to struggle with French and Spanish too. So, they were keen to get involved and help support them in this way.

We’re very lucky to have those three hours, and it’s great that other departments support it too. It means students can meet a minimum of 90 minutes per week on the programme. Before this, we tried having just one hour in school and expecting them to do the rest at home, but students with lower reading ages often struggled to access it independently, even with incentives. But now, with the extra time and support from across the school, it’s working really well.

Describe the impact that Lexia has had on your pupils. 

Yeah, many of them do make progress in their reading age by the end of the year. We haven’t done this year’s reading age test yet, but every year, we see improvements.

Even just in lessons with my own class, I can definitely see the difference. Their comprehension and decoding skills have improved. In our normal English lessons, we’re currently studying war poetry, and previously, we’ve read Animal Farm and other challenging texts. As the year goes on, they become much better at understanding difficult words and grasping the meaning of what they’re reading.

They struggle less with complex vocabulary because they’ve learned to break words down—looking at prefixes, suffixes, and understanding how words are structured. It’s nice to see that progress as a classroom teacher.

Even without this year’s reading age data, you can see their confidence growing in lessons. That shift in their ability and self-assurance over time is just lovely to see.

The Year 6s, where the format of the previous programme maybe wasn’t as mature for them. So, last year we decided to switch them over to PowerUp, and the difference has been incredible.

Can you give an example of a Lexia success that sticks out to you?

So far this year, we’ve actually had a couple of students who have already completed the whole programme and have been moved up sets. That was awesome, and amazing for them to see their own progress.

One of my Year 9s, in particular, has struggled with reading for a long time. He used to find it really difficult to get high streaks. As you know, streaks show when they’re getting consecutive answers right, and we reward students for streaks of 25 or more. He would often say, “Oh, I was almost there, but I lost it.”

But now, he’s frequently getting streaks in the hundreds! It’s been amazing to see his confidence grow—to see him getting more and more questions right and holding onto those streaks. From the start of the year to now, the progress is incredible.

How have you used rewards to motivate and celebrate success on the Lexia program?

We have these little praise postcards where we can write a message on the back, and they’re worth five praise points in our school system. Students get one of these if they manage to reach a streak of 25 or more during a lesson.

Sometimes, I turn it into a bit of a competition—who can get the highest streak in the lesson. It can get a little boisterous, but since it’s all about the work, that’s always a good thing!

After my implementation review the other day with LexiaUK, we’ve just introduced praise for units gained in a lesson as well. Now, whoever gains the most units in a lesson also gets a praise postcard. This has really encouraged students to stick with sections they find difficult. Before, they would sometimes jump between different sections to avoid getting stuck, but now they stay focused because they want to earn their praise postcards.

We also track how many minutes they complete each week. I export all the data, put it into a spreadsheet, and an admin assistant sends emails home. The top three students with the most minutes get a message congratulating them on their effort. We make it as encouraging and rewarding as we can.

How useful have you found the myLexia reports in terms of demonstrating progression and informing planning?

I usually use it to track minutes and make sure students are meeting the minimum of 90, because we know that if they reach that target, they’ll make the progress they need.

We also use it to monitor where they are in terms of progressing through the levels—from Foundation to Intermediate to Advanced—and to keep an eye on who’s close to finishing sections.

In the future, we hope to make more use of the Skill Builders and instructional resources that are generated. That’s something I’m working towards—maybe having a reading mentor or someone else in the room who could take a smaller group and focus on Skill Builders or targeted instruction. While we’d like to use the resources more, for now, we mainly focus on tracking progress through levels and ensuring students complete the minutes they need. Hopefully, we can expand this in the future.

What main piece of advice would you give to a school that was just getting started with Lexia?

The biggest thing is just praise—constant praise for anything and everything you can. If you can get students on board and excited about it, everything becomes so much easier.

The other key thing is making sure that everyone in the school understands the importance of reading. We’re very lucky here at Launceton because reading is a whole-school priority. We do lots of different things to promote it, like tutor reading in the mornings, so it’s a school-wide initiative. That’s made it much easier for me to get everyone on board with Lexia.

If you can create that culture, it helps secure time for students to actually use the programme. Without dedicated time, it just doesn’t work.

And finally, make sure those minutes are happening in school, ideally with support from the whole staff. If everyone recognises that reading and literacy are essential, and that this programme will support those skills, it makes a huge difference.

What feedback have you had from your Lexia pupils?

A lot of them have said it’s helped build their confidence. They feel more confident in class, more confident when reading, and more confident that they understand what’s happening when we read together. That’s always lovely to hear.

Some have said, “I understand more of what I’ve read,” or “I get why sentences are structured the way they are.”

And then, of course, a lot of them just say, “I really like it. It’s fun. I like seeing my streak. I like that I’m beating someone’s streak. I like winning my postcard.”

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I think the key over the last couple of years has been having backing from everyone across the college—our languages teachers, our senior leadership team—all working together to implement Lexia in the way we have.

That support has made the biggest difference, not just for the students, but for us as Lexia teachers and for me as a Lexia lead. Without it, we were struggling because we didn’t have the dedicated time, and the students weren’t always completing it at home independently. Not every child has the same level of access or support at home.

Knowing that we’re all working together has been the biggest factor in boosting Lexia attainment. You can see from everything we’ve achieved this year just how much of a difference it has made.

I’m grateful to everyone in the school for supporting the programme and, most importantly, for supporting our students. As we all know, GCSE papers require a reading age of 15+, so without these interventions, we would be letting our students down.

So, I’m just incredibly grateful to everyone for making the most of the time our students have with us and ensuring they get the support they need.

Finally, if you could describe Lexia in 3 words, what 3 words would you use?

I would say impactful, engaging, and, due to the fact that it gives me data on student progress, insightful.