LAC Periods:
An LAC period per cycle was arranged in the timetable to equip students with academic language skills. During the LAC period, English teachers introduced subject specific vocabulary and common knowledge structures used in different subjects to develop students’ academic literacy. Through a variety of interactive activities, students learned how to share their ideas with their classmates and how to apply the language learnt in authentic contexts.

Summer Bridging Programme:
The English panel head, who is also the LAC co-ordinator, took the lead in modifying and enriching the existing bridging programme by infusing simple content obligatory language from different KLAs and providing students with opportunities to use it in order to complete authentic tasks. This diversified the sources of language input and eased the transition between P6 & S1.

Apart from implementing cross-curricular projects to develop students’ reading and writing skills in normal IS lessons, the IS panel head took the lead in designing outside the classroom activities with IS and English teachers. 

IS LAC Day
A variety of games & activities were organized during lunch time to motivate the students. Different topics which the students were interested in and familiar with such as the body structure and use of apparatus were covered. The activities gave students opportunities to recycle and revise content obligatory vocabulary and concepts. 

Reading Across the Curriculum (RaC)
An extensive cross-curricular reading programme in which students were taught to use different reading strategies to read information texts was implemented at the beginning of the term. Students then applied the skills learnt through reading science books of their choice during the year and writing related book reports as reflection. This gradually helped widen students’ knowledge of Science topics covered in IS, as well as develop their academic literacy.

- Increasing readiness & raising awareness of panel members to infuse English into Maths

- Building teachers’ capacity

To support the junior form Maths teachers, the Maths panel head organised professional development activities to equip panel members with the required professional knowledge and skills:

Systematic curriculum planning and mapping
In order to help teachers identify their needs and raise their awareness of infusing English into Maths, the Maths panel head listed out some key vocabulary and language elements in each topic and infused them into textbook units. In order to create space for teachers to apply the necessary language and skills in the chosen units for cross-curricular collaboration, the panel head adjusted and reorganised the sequence of the units to allow teachers to have greater flexibility in their teaching. With the understanding that it is important to equip junior form students’ language skills to prepare for a better transition to senior forms, the Maths panel head chose the topics, which will be reinforced in senior forms for the cross-curricular projects to increase students’ exposure to English and confidence in using English to learn Maths.

Lesson Study
In order to demonstrate how to integrate English into Maths, the Maths panel head organised a lesson study session with all junior form Maths teachers. Based on the lesson observed and video-taped, the panel head guided teachers to reflect on how to maximise students’ opportunities to use English in Maths and how to use different approaches such as inquiry learning to develop students’ critical thinking skills.

Train the trainer workshop
The panel head organised a workshop for panel members and invited the core teachers who were involved in S1 & S2 projects to share their experiences. Conceptualising and sharing their experiences helped these teachers develop the leadership skills required to sustain the positive impact from one level to the other.

The Geography panel head found that it was difficult to nurture students’ critical thinking and independent learning skills in normal lessons due to the tight schedule. So as a coping strategy, she proposed using project learning. 

Project-based learning