Achievement Data

Teachers have been busy testing and gathering data over the last 3 weeks. here we use easttle writing, PAT reading comp and maths, STAR, reading running records and GLOSS/JAM for maths. All of this obviously takes a long time to administer and a lot of training and moderation to ensure consistency.

Now this data is being used to help write reports for parents and to form reports for the school, community and MOE on achievement and progress.

So that teachers can measure the impact their practice has on achievement these results need to be broken down at class level. This is what we are working towards in our  Inquiry meeting next week.
Teachers have been asked to come armed with their reading data. They are required to list achievement levels at the beginning of the year, at the end on the year, and then calculate the shift made during the year. It could look something like this:

(not real names)

Then together we are going to manipulate the information in a spreadsheet to analyse our own class data by asking the following questions:

1. When students are sorted into reading ages from higher to lower is there a pattern of shift? Which groups am I shifting the most?

2. When girls and boys are separated is there a difference between achievement? What about shift?

3. Given that our school aim is to accelerate learning, what percentage of students shifted more than 1 year? What percentage shifted less than a year?

After this data inspection teachers are going off into their collaborative inquiry questions to discuss the Whys. 

Our inquiry  presentation in a couple of weeks can hopefully use this information to reflect on the impact out teaching, and the goals we set had on learning.

Teacher Collaboration For Better Results

"The power of collective capacity is that it enables ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things, for two reasons," Fullan writes in All Systems Go. "One is that knowledge about effective practice becomes more widely available and accessible on a daily basis. The second reason is more powerful still — working together generates commitment."

This term we are kicking off our collaborative Inquiry Meetings with an Agony Aunt session. Teachers are coming with a significant barrier or challenge their children have in learning, and are asking the group for ideas, advice and things to think about.