Qu. #2 - Why we judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year...

Achieving accelerated shift in Literacy was identified as being one of the most important and catalytic issues of learning facing our students in Y4 - 8, this year, when the time point one data was analysed. Exploring how learning gained from professional development is helping to strengthen teacher practice and achievement in literacy is something I haven't looked at before so I am looking forward to sharing my findings.

As I am not looking specifically into my own practice it is important to maintain anonymity. This inquiry is a syndicate wide focus and therefore not a focus on individual teachers. Our starting point with professional development linked to Literacy undertaken by the senior syndicate (Y4-Y8) in the 2023/24 period consists of:

• In Class Support (ICS) 2023
• Reading Program Intensive 2023 teacher/mentor meetings and observations 2023
• T Shaped Literacy 2023
• The Code 2024
• In Class Support (ICS) 2024
• PRT Y1/2 teacher/mentor meetings and observations 2023/24

To measure the shift I needed clear picture of where our student's starting points were. What to collect for baseline data was something I struggled with as I couldn't decide on the best way to do this. Like many faced with a direction conundrum, the task ahead found its way to the 'I'll do it later basket'. My problem was 'later' became a hard time to find. I knew I needed help and today that help came in the form of Amy Tofa and Matt Goodwin. 

I explained my inquiry focus and together we came up with a way forward that made sense to me. A really useful piece of advice here is to talk to your colleagues as saying things out loud and getting a 2nd opinion, or 3rd in my case, is one of the most valuable resources we can tap into. Amy pointed out to me that the picture I was trying to capture was huge and suggested I focus on one group of students. I am 100% taking her advice to focus on our students who scored 'Below' on our beginning of year literacy assessments.

The data above shows the percentage of our Year 4 -8 students who scored Below expectation on the PAT Reading Comprehension and e-asTTle assessments. I will be using this data to measure the shift made between the two cluster wide assessment timepoints in my target group. 

Qu. #2 - Why we judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year...

Last week after talking to the teachers I am mentoring in the RPI program I was reminded of the Reading for Enjoyment survey I did last year to get to know my learners as readers. In a conversation with Dianne afterwards, I suggested that we could try to create a similar survey that would help us get to know our learners a spellers. Our Principal understands our concerns with regards to spelling abilities in our current class and is fully supportive of our proposed inquiry into word consciousness. 

The results of this survey are below.

Link to presentation

We judge this to be the most important and catalytic issue of learning for this group of learners this year as the results here affirm our initial thinking that a deficit in word consciousness and a 'fear' of getting words wrong, limits the level of vocabulary used in independent writing, and causes meaning to be lost in reading. It will be interesting to analyse the self efficacy rating and the spelling level given when the e-asTTle writing assessment data is complete. (NB: Our plan is to look at the current and historical data of the e-asTTle writing, PAT Reading and the Peter's spelling test to identify trends). 

Meet my focus students...

The best way to understand the students I am working with is to paint a picture with numbers. Last year I learnt that creating a historical data pathway would give me a much clearer picture of my learners, so I have taken this learning and repeated the process. In reality I have only worked with these students for seven weeks due to the Level 4 lockdown but in that time I have gained an insight of their personalities and working styles. 

Through capturing this picture of historical data I have come to understand that 4/6 students have continually achieved the top scores across the curriculum in their cohort data. This is reflected in their classroom interactions, willingness to begin work straight away, ask questions and their ability to naturally assume a leadership role. 2/6 students appear to find maths and writing a challenge, but are working at their chronological age in reading. The latter two students on the other hand shy away from leadership but always contribute actively to the learning conversations in group challenges. These girls do not like having the responsibility of deciding the direction their group will go in, but once given direction from their peers, confidently carry out their roles. They like to work in a more supportive environment with teacher or teacher aid support to get started. I have come to understand that this is where they feel most confident asking the questions they need to ask in order to make a stronger connection to the learning. This data has answered a few questions I had with these two learners. Both are popular and confident when interacting with others, both work well in any group they are put in, but neither like to share their ideas in the wider class forum, and neither want anyone to know they need a bit more support.

As mentioned in a pervious post... 'For the last 5 years Panmure Bridge School has claimed the Summer Learning Journey's overall prize for top blogging school, something we are extremely proud of and value highly. However this year the feedback from the SLJ team was that our participants had strengths in blogging, however, seemed to drop the ball when it came to the commenting component. Many of our learners either overlooked responding to comments made on their blogs, or simply replied with a thank you. 

With my inquiry focus to explore if strengthening connections to Smart Relationships will help my learners to understand and use content specific language and vocabulary in context, I have selected this group as all 6/6 students are active bloggers, all participated successfully in the SLJ, with 3/6 receiving prizes for their efforts; but none replied to comments with anything other than a 'thank you'.

WFRC #1/2: Introducing my 2019 Inquiry...

Our Manaiakalani Community of Learning (COL) is part of the agency for change that is necessary for our tamariki to succeed. Manaiakalani’s evidence helps bring about teacher practice changes through inquiry. Across our cluster our NE enter school well below norm due to their limited language acquisition. As they progress through the learning levels the gap gets wider. The team from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre (WFRC) will be working with the Manaiakalani cluster again using meta analysis to identify what’s working and sharing what these teachers are doing.

As a Year 7/8 teacher I see how real the ongoing struggle is for our learners who do not have the language acquisition and literacy skills needed to make sense of learning at our level. Recent assessment data has showed that my target group were not able to unpack what the questions were asking them to do. Looking back at trends in their historical data (from Year 5), the picture is no different. These disconnects result in wider gaps in learning that are becoming harder and harder to fill.

With this in mind this year I will be inquiring into whether increased emphasis on reading comprehension instruction can lead to better subject achievement in reading, maths and writing. I have selected this focus as all of my target group have had Reading Recovery, Rainbow Reading and STEPS interventions. 5/9 students have had ESOL funding. 2/9 have had Teacher Aide support each year. Self efficacy is something I will continue to grow as each of these students are aware they find learning a challenge, something that has become more evident as the gap between their achievement levels and the achievement levels of their peers widens.

My hunch is that some issues with my students’ math achievement are related to issues they have with reading instructions and tasks. I noticed during our 1:1 running record assessment time that 9/9 students were able to recall a lot of literal information. Most reverted to tapping into prior knowledge when asked questions they were not able to recall. Despite being reminded gently at the start of the assessment to refer back to the text as the words hold the information, only 3/9 were able to do this. These students read the text in entirety from the top down each time. This highlighted to me that skimming and scanning are additional skills that need to be developed.

I am currently analysing my data more thoroughly and will update my blog with this information when this is complete.