A critical exploration of a Professional Learning Community as a mechanism for developing whole-school approaches to literacy in Wales.

This mixed methods study sought to examine how a PLC could influence the work of literacy coordinators as they established whole-school literacy approaches in secondary schools in Wales. The area of focus came into view partly in response to a period of considerable and intense change in schools across Wales regarding the development of literacy skills per se and reading skills in particular. This research focused on how whole-school, cross-subject literacy could be managed and developed in secondary schools. Five schools, of similar backgrounds, took part in the research, which took place over an academic year. This involvement included the participation of the literacy coordinators of these schools in a Professional Learning Community (PLC), lesson observation, teacher interviews and, at the start and the end of the year of the research, pupil data gathered from PISA Reading Literacy test papers. The research was sociocultural in design and theoretical positioning. As such, the literacy approaches and practices in each of the schools were not pre-selected for efficacy but were developed by the literacy coordinators in response to a number of factors, including their increased engagement with theoretical positions on literacy and the approaches that emerged from this engagement. This research examines critically the link between literacy theory and how it impacts upon whole-school literacy policy, classroom practice and performance in PISA Reading Literacy tests in secondary school. It also identifies some of the challenges, benefits and assumptions regarding whole-school approaches to literacy in secondary schools and explores how these approaches present in the classroom