New literacy initiative at Vocational College
A new Literacy Initiative was officially launched at Enniscorthy Vocational College (EVC) on Friday. First year students were issued with a ‘vocabulary enrichment booklet’ called ‘Lexicon Launch’ which comprises of three sections - English, Maths and Science. As each student encounters a new word in these three subjects, the word is spoken, written into the appropriate section, defined using newly purchased dictionaries, and finally ‘put in action’ in the classroom. Each month, students will be exposed to a separate list of new words.
Teams from St Senan’s NS, St Aidan’s PS and EVC have been working together on this initiative for over a year. Carmel Donoghue, inspector from the Department of Education and Science, has been overseeing the School Excellence Fund project while liaising with principals Oona Rackard, Peter Creedon and Iain Wickham.
All three schools have recently received training from the Australian literacy expert Steven Graham, who has a very innovative approach. Students from both Enniscorthy town primary schools have benefited hugely from this and vocabulary enrichment is the chosen path of the core team at EVC in order to continue the excellent work done at primary level.
Lexicon Launch is among several literacy initiatives in the Vocational College, such as ‘Word of the Week’, ‘Word Mil- lionaire’ the school newspaper and the JCSP library.
Principal Iain Wickham thanked Emma Bolger, Brídín Kelly and Brian Stack, along with subject teachers for driving this new initiative in the school. He also took the opportunity to wish St Aidan’s PS Principal Peter Creedon all the best in his retirement, while wishing his replacement Frank Murphy all the very best in his new role.