Year one of the journey
Foundations for Literacy Success
You have a program. You want it to work for every student. This is the twelve-month partnership that builds the system around it.
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Build teacher capability in responsive, adaptive literacy instruction
Most schools that come to us have already done the hard work. They chose a program carefully, funded it, trained everybody, and are a year or two in. Results have improved, but not everywhere and not evenly.
In our experience, the gap between effort and outcome has very little to do with teacher effort. It is what happens when a school has a program but has not yet built an instructional system around it.
Foundations for Literacy Success is a twelve-month partnership that helps you build that system, across every grade in your primary school.
Download your Foundations brochure
The full information pack, including what is included, how the year runs, and your investment.
A practical, whole-school approach
Professional learning
Builds teacher knowledge, delivered by your own leaders in the meeting time you already have.
Coaching
Supports leaders to provide the clarity teachers need in order to take action.
Shared systems and tools
Improve consistency across the school and outlast the people who set them up.
The result is a literacy approach that is more responsive, more sustainable, and more deeply embedded in classroom practice.
Foundations for Literacy Success is for you if
- Your school's principal is driving and supporting your continual school improvement journey.
- You will not be satisfied until you have success for every student in your school.
- Your school is committed to creating consistent, highly effective instruction and a system of instruction that results in universal success.
- You can commit to and prioritise 7 to 8 staff meetings across the year.
- You are ready to examine your current word-level practices, F-2 phonics and 3-6 spelling, identifying strengths and areas for improvement.
Your year of Foundations for Literacy Success
Quality school improvement cannot be rushed. Your first year focuses on ensuring strong word-level learning across your school, using data to evaluate impact and build teacher capability.
Orientation modules to build a shared initial understanding of cognition, explicit teaching and the literacy block. Coaching focuses on reviewing available data to obtain a snapshot of the starting point that aligns with your school's strategic priorities.
Sprint 1 · Assessment for responsive instructionDevelop simple, regular check-in practices so teachers can continually monitor whether new learning has stuck. Embed new practices and collaborate to respond to students' needs.
Engage in professional learning to build shared understanding of effective literacy instruction. Evaluate current practice and develop a clear action plan for instructional adjustments to implement in Term 3.
Facilitate implementation of instructional adjustments, using data to determine impact.
Lead whole-staff reflection on progress and finalise documentation for your school's playbook.
Build both team and leader confidence
A focused and confident leadership team is essential for a high-performing school.
Principals, deputy and assistant principals, instructional coaches and middle leaders, including year level coordinators, all have access to Introduction to Responsive Instructional Leadership, a live online course led by Jocelyn Seamer.
The course introduces the Responsive Leadership Model, which sets out the phases people move through when building capability in any area of practice, and what each phase requires from the person supporting them.
Leaders finish able to identify where a colleague sits developmentally, match their support to that phase instead of defaulting to a single style, and apply the same thinking to their own growth.
The course runs across four one-hour sessions, with recordings available to all participants for twelve months.
Submit your expression of interestHow is this different from other professional learning?
Most professional learning is built to transfer knowledge through a course or an expert day. That results in some additional knowledge, but very little changing in classrooms. Foundations for Literacy Success is designed to build capability across your school. Your leaders lead the professional learning, using content we provide, in the meeting time you already have. We coach your leaders rather than replacing them, so the person holding the expectation is somebody who will still be in your school in three years. Everything your team decides gets documented into your playbook, so it survives the next round of staff turnover.
The other practical difference is that the work is shaped around your school rather than around a curriculum we deliver. We start with your data, we help you evaluate your current practice, and we help you act on what you find. Two schools in the same intake will make different decisions, because they have different problems to solve.
And it includes everybody. Teachers, leaders and classroom support staff, all in the one price, because a system of instruction that only some of your adults understand is not a system yet.
What you have at the end of twelve months
Frequently asked questions
We already have a literacy program. Does this replace it?
No. Foundations for Literacy Success is about the system of instruction around your program, not the program itself. Most of the schools we work with keep what they have and get far more out of it, because their team understands what each part of instruction is doing and why. If your program has gaps, we help you find them and decide what to do about them.
We are only just getting started with structured literacy. Is it too early for us?
It is a good place to start. The first part of the year builds shared knowledge across your whole team about cognition, explicit teaching and what belongs in a literacy block, so everybody is working from the same understanding before anything changes in classrooms.
We have been doing this work for years. Will there be anything in it for us?
Usually yes, and often in places schools do not expect. Experienced schools tend to get the most out of evaluating their current practice against the evidence, because that is where they find the things they assumed were covered and are not. If you are already strong across the board, tell us during your enquiry and we will say so honestly rather than take your money.
Is this just for the early years?
No. The work covers the whole primary school. In the early years the focus is phonics and decoding, in the upper primary years it is spelling, and partner reading runs across every grade. Your Resource Room membership covers the whole literacy block for every grade in the primary school.
Our staff are at very different stages. Some are on board and some are not.
That is the normal starting point, and it is one of the reasons the work is structured the way it is. Because the whole team builds knowledge together and then looks at practice against the evidence rather than against each other, the conversation stops being about who is doing it right. Schools consistently tell us this is what changes the temperature in the staffroom.
What do we actually get?
A twelve-month partnership. Your leadership team joins the live Introduction to Responsive Instructional Leadership course with Jocelyn. You get five one-hour coaching sessions with an instructional coach timed across the year, strategic planning support to map your literacy block, and data coaching to unpack student results and plan your response. Every member of your team, including classroom support staff, gets access to the Foundations site and its courses. You also get a twelve-month Resource Room membership and access to a thinking partner when something comes up.
How much time does this take? We have no room in our meeting schedule.
The work uses your existing meeting times. Your school will need to commit to 7 to 8 staff meetings across the year. Your leadership team has access to five personalised coaching sessions booked at a time of your choosing.
Is it online or in person?
The partnership runs online, which is what keeps it affordable and available to schools anywhere. If you would like in-person modelling and coaching days, they can be added subject to our team's availability.
How do we get started?
Download the information pack and submit an expression of interest for the 2027 intake. We will arrange a conversation to work out whether the problems you are trying to solve are the ones this partnership solves. If they are not, we will tell you.
Submit your expression of interest