Blogpost #4: Discussion with SLT and catalytic Issue of learning

Following on from my blogpost #2...

Upon discussions with SLT, we agreed that my focus will be on the Reading Practice Intensive. I am a mentor teacher for two teachers in my team, who are part of this programme. My role is to support my teachers build their capability through RPI, ensure they have access to up-to date practice content during our meetings and watch the impact this intervention makes on their wider practice and eventually improve learning outcomes for our learners.

READING continues to be an area of weakness in the cluster and within our school. 

If you look at the graph below for our writing data, learners from our Y7-8 cohorts are at, above or very close to the norm. You can see it's quite complex to distinguish the norm line from the Maori, Pasifika and GTS data. To me, this is a good sign.

Whereas, with our reading data, there is a wider gap for our Maori and Pasifika Y7-8 learners between them and the national norm. You'll notice the dotted norm line is higher.

We decided as a team that content and practice knowledge acquired through RPI will be implemented in all our classes. Consistency is key! As a team, we run on a collaborative model. We plan and teach collaboratively and it only makes sense that I too, incorporate the tools and methods my mentee teachers are expected to use.

The group of learners we wish to focus on, are all our students, but with a close eye on our Maori and Pasifika learners.

We hope that the RPI programme will enable us to make a difference in the learning this year and show a shift in our end of year reading data.

Blogpost #3: Summarise the challenge of student learning

For my 2023 inquiry, I am choosing to focus on Reading. This learning area continues to be an area of weakness at school and within the Manaiakalani cluster. For the last couple of days, I have been looking at some of the data from Edpotential. I specifically looked at our school report, to identify data from our students recent PAT Reading Comprehension assessment then went and looked at the cluster reports.

Figure 1. PAT Reading Comprehension Mean Overall Score by Year Level & Ethnicity (specifically Maori, Pasifika, Glen Taylor School and Norm highlighted)

In the graph above, I specifically wanted to look at Maori and Pasifika data. Why? Because the dominant demographic at our school are Maori and Pasifika learners. I am choosing to focus only on the year level I teach, which are Y7&8. As seen on the graph, you can see progress made by the learners from T1, 2022 to T1, 2023 for both Pasifika and Maori groups. 

The image below shows more clearer picture. As a classroom teacher and a team leader for the Senior school and a focus on Maori and Pasifika students, I want to ensure that the progress continues for our learners. The mean overall score for Y6/7 and Y7/8 is is higher than it was in T1 of last year.

According to our Principal, for the Y6-Y7 cohort/group (3rd graph), we only have 1 student identified as Maori in that cohort and was probably absent on the day of assessment, hence why there is no data for Maori for that group. 

In any ideal world, we would all love for our students to be at or above the national norm, but it isn't an easy journey. After further unpacking of the students data, our team got together to identify a goal for reading for the year.

For reading, we want our data for term 1, 2024, particularly our Y6-Y7 cohort, we will work to gain a norm difference of plus 5 (i.e. 13 in total). From their PAT assessment, we have identified the need of a focus on inferencing and vocabulary (refer to graph below).

Overall, student data indicates that we are adding value and closing the gap for writing, less so in reading and maths (school and cluster wide). The questions remains, WHY? Perhaps moderation and teacher judgement plays a role in identifying next steps vs gaps in teaching areas contributing to less movement in maths and reading; perhaps students are more motivated in writing and the steps required for advancement more clearly more communicated than, say, those indicated by the maths matrices and/or more group focused (contributing to that vexed issue of heterogenous vs ability based groups - with the caveat that even ability based groups contain a mix of learning needs.