West Lancashire College celebrated Literacy Week from 25th to 29th November to highlight the importance of reading, writing and effective communication in future job roles. The week featured an array of fantastic activities organised by the College’s curriculum team to inspire their students and included interactive workshops, creative writing sessions and staff also came together to host a book club.
The celebration of Literacy Week focused on promoting literacy as an important skill for the students personal and professional development and success.
The week began with the Art and Design, Beauty Therapy, Hairdressing and Plumbing students creating a pen portrait of famous historical industry figures that have revolutionised the industry and were asked to focus on how the individual started and what their early influences were. Students also embraced their activities designed to enhance their writing, speaking, listening, and presenting skills by incorporating command verbs such as describe, discuss, explain and present.
T Level Health students joined forces with other Health students to play an Articulate game of health words and conduct a role-play of communication challenges. They worked in pairs to role-play as healthcare providers and patients. One student read a health instruction, such as a medication regimen and the other student explained what it meant in simpler terms to promote a clear and empathetic communication skillset.
Early Years Education students held a phonics session, where they were tasked to create a phonics hat and to lead their phonics findings to the group. Engineering students used technical terms flash card match to showcase the timeline of Pioneers of Engineering, as well as to research Engineering figures who shaped the world around us. Students documented their findings to display as a presentation.
Alex Huskisson, Head of Adult Skills said, "Students of West Lancashire College participated in Literacy Week by engaging in activities meticulously prepared by the hardworking curriculum staff, showcasing their enthusiasm for learning and celebrating the transformative power of literacy. Well done to everyone involved for creating and participating in such an important, but fun filled week of activity."
Mia and Hannah, two of the Electrical Level 3 students created a fantastic presentation about Hertha Ayrton which was presented to their classmates. This was a great opportunity for our students to learn how to write a concise and impactful introduction about their chosen figure. Level 3 Uniformed Public Services identified safety aspects of navigations by planning and preparing for a navigation by writing a safety leaflet, which contained the use of modal verbs. Students for Applied Human Biology were tasked with ‘Etymology of Biological Words’ and figured out from English what a word is in Latin or Greek.
Finally, the Learning Support team spent their lunch hour creating a treasure hunt for our students which contained 5 fun literacy games to find several locations around the college in order to collect tools. Students also participated in a version of Wordle. Where students had to identify as many 3-5 letter words as they could from the 5 letters that were provided. There was also a book swap where staff and local organisations kindly gifted lots of amazing books for students to take away.
The college would like to express their thanks and gratitude to Waterstones Ormskirk, Skelmersdale Library as well as college staff and students for kindly donating books.