Kofi Annan said that "Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress, and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential." Bayview Middle School strives to create a language programme where students can acquire the skills and strategies they need in order to become proficient language users in a variety of contexts.

Students of Bayview Middle School study language daily following the program presented in The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Language, 2006 (Revised). The school's goal is to teach and consolidate students' language knowledge, skills, and strategies and their ability to use them independently and effectively to understand, reflect on, apply and communicate information and ideas, and for the continued learning in school and in a multicultural, multimedia world. Our goal this year is to integrate Social Studies (History and Geography) with Language Arts to provide a rich Literacy block for all our studnets.

The four strands of Language (Reading, Writing, Oral and Visual Communication and Media Literacy) are each reported on in the Elementary Progress Report Card in the fall and in the Elementary Provincial Report Card in February and June.

In addition to the regular classroom programme, there are many other activities and events that our students have been involved in such as Boys Book club, Silver Birch and Red Maple Reading programs, Urban Voices, an annual TDSB contest, and special events promoting literacy and the arts.

Bayview has created a Book Room to assist our teachers in setting up quality language arts programmes at Bayview. It is meant to be a central place to store all current literary materials including both students books and reference books for teachers. It is also intended to be a place where teachers can meet and discuss current literacy programmes and initiatives. At present, Bayview teachers attend regularly scheduled subject Professional Learning Community meetings to plan curriculum, review student achievement and discuss current and past CASI (a standardized reading test) and EQAO (a provincial standardized test) literacy results.