


Whole-school literacy improvement at Kings Langley School

Implementing Bedrock
At King Langley, Bedrock is implemented as a subject in its own sense, meaning that one teacher is responsible for the entirety of Bedrock, keeping communication consistent and giving learners one teacher to turn to for support. Vouchers and certificates are often used for rewards - check out “I heard a wispa” below!
Bedrock's impact
Since implementing Bedrock, teachers at Kings Langley School have seen evidence of improvements in learners' writing and in their oracy, with new vocabulary often being used. Bedrock has proved to be especially effective for Pupil Premium and SEND learners, who have seen a lot of success.
Bedrock Learning
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How Kings Langley School is improving literacy with Bedrock Learning
- Clear implementation plan with centralised monitoring
- Create a culture around recognition and celebration of learners’ achievements
- Consistency is key!
Following the positive feedback from other local schools, the team at Kings Langley School decided to implement Bedrock for their whole cohort, from Year 7 to Year 13. Sabra Butt, Learning Area Leader of Communications, shares her experience with implementing the Bedrock Learning curriculum, as well as key reasons behind her school’s success.
- Clear implementation plan with centralised monitoring
- Create a culture around recognition and celebration of learners’ achievements
- Consistency is key!
Following the positive feedback from other local schools, the team at Kings Langley School decided to implement Bedrock for their whole cohort, from Year 7 to Year 13. Sabra Butt, Learning Area Leader of Communications, shares her experience with implementing the Bedrock Learning curriculum, as well as key reasons behind her school’s success.

"We have seen a lot of improvement thanks to Bedrock in their expression in writing. We also have a lot of success with our more vulnerable groups such as Pupil Premium (PP) and SEND learners who really appreciate the engaging nature of the programme, as well as the consistent accountability and how easy it is to see their progress."
Three reasons for the whole-school literacy improvement success at Kings Langley School:
1. Implementing a clear plan with centralised monitoring
After careful consideration of our school’s infrastructure and learners’ timetables, we decided to implement Bedrock lessons as a dedicated homework task. It is then monitored centrally via the English department. This makes the Bedrock curriculum a subject in its own sense.
Thanks to being centrally monitored, learners come to me for help signing on and instructions for homework assignments, rather than their teachers. This ensures communication is consistent for all learners, allowing them to make the best use of the Bedrock curriculum.
2. Creating a culture around recognising and celebrating learners’ achievements
We’ve received great support from the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), especially in our recognition programme. Progress in English is usually better seen over time instead of instantly, which can be hard to measure. When there are suitable opportunities to motivate and celebrate learners’ successes, our SLT fully supports those initiatives. Our headteacher also spends time talking to learners and embedding the Tier 2 vocabulary into our assemblies and other communications.
Bedrock reports, such as the class engagement analysis, give us an overall view of learners’ progress weekly. Based on this actionable data, there is a weekly message to all staff about the highest-performing learner. This learner is included in our newsletter and other school-wide announcements. Social media is another channel we use to communicate about learners’ achievement. We make sure to tag Bedrock so learners’ achievements can be shared.
Every two weeks, I send out “I heard a Wispa” certificates to learners who earned the most points for each year group, which have been very well received. These small prizes all add up and make a real difference to learners’ motivation.

As well as this, learners enter a Bedrock Stars Prize competition every half term with voucher prizes, which has helped raise the profile of Bedrock among more cynical learners significantly. At the end of the last term, we awarded the highest performing learners from every year group and whole-school with voucher prizes.

"I've been so impressed with how our learners have engaged with [Bedrock] and see the importance of it."
3. Consistency is key!
To ensure all learners make the best use of Bedrock, we send a reminder every two days on how to log in and complete their Bedrock lessons for the week. We remind learners of any ongoing competitions and previous prize-winners to encourage engagement. This has been very successful so far and they have been engaging with it.
Another aspect of consistency I’m working on is consistency within the classroom. Different teachers integrate Bedrock reminders into their schedule in different ways. My plan is to learn from best practice at other Bedrock schools and experiment to see what works best at Kings Langley.
I'm also working with staff and middle leaders on creating a buzz around Bedrock across all subject areas (not just English!). Following a CPD I led on adding subject-specific curricula to Bedrock's Subject-specific curriculum, Mapper, subject leaders have already started planning it into their curriculum and homework for next year.
To ensure stakeholder buy-in, a number of Bedrock parent events have been hosted to ensure they understand and champion the programme. The key phrase "Have you done your Bedrock?" among parents suggests that Bedrock is becoming part of the fabric and ethos of the school.
Looking forward to the future…
Bedrock is now a whole-school strategy in the school development plan and thus is fully supported and backed by the Headteacher and SLT. Our school is in the early phases of implementing Bedrock, but we’ve definitely seen the improvement in oracy at our school. We would like to further this improvement across all subjects.
One of our priorities includes utilising Bedrock to go beyond improving writing skills. We want to use Bedrock to improve learners’ speaking skills also, achieving more parity between the vocabulary learners’ use in both forms.
We also aim to have every curriculum mapped on Bedrock Mapper to help with Tier 3 vocabulary acquisition, retention and usage.
Additionally, we hope to learn from other Bedrock schools’ success stories. We look forward to keeping up the momentum with Bedrock.
To summarise, here are three ways to harness the power of Bedrock and improve literacy at your school:
- Implementing a clear plan with centralised monitoring to ensure successful implementation
- Creating a culture around recognition and celebration of learners’ achievements to encourage learners’ engagement
- Consistency is key across all aspects of communications about Bedrock!
Case Studies
More brilliant case studies...
Success in every subject at St Anselm's Catholic School
"Subjects get to cherry-pick their words, but the way that students learn is completely consistent."
How we use Bedrock Learning at Coston Primary
"From a workload perspective [for teachers], there is no workload with Bedrock. It's been wonderful for our teachers to use."
Why the Harris Federation chose to partner with Bedrock
"Bedrock Learning certainly has the power to turn students into linguists and open doors to their futures. Vocabulary is the absolute lever point to their future and therefore Bedrock Learning has the power to create their future."
Doubling national literacy progress at St Mary’s CEVA Primary School
"I can’t think of a programme that can support children in their vocabulary building better than Bedrock."
Data & Reporting within Harris Federation academies
"As a Literacy Lead overseeing 32 secondary schools, it's a massive challenge. Bedrock Learning certainly gives me the insights and the possibility of penetrating the literacy vision within each of those schools." - Charlotte Evans, Literacy Lead at Harris Federation
Improving reading comprehension by 20% for KS3 learners at Taverham High School
"Overall, we are seeing that reading comprehension across our Key Stage 3 learners has improved by 20%.”
Impacting outcomes for Pupil Premium, EAL and SEND learners at Harris Federation
"We have had remarkable success with some of our English as an Additional Language students, they have really shone with this and they love that empowerment of learning new words."
Using Bedrock for the humanities at St. Anselm's
"We had a member of senior leadership from another school come and visit, and they couldn't believe that our Year 8's knew [words] that they were struggling with with their GCSE [learners]. Our Year 8's have just flown with it."
Partnering with Bedrock across the Harris Federation
"All 32 of our schools are now fully-fledged, signed up members of the Bedrock crew... and this is because we have been able to show evidence of excellence."