Snap shot - Learning data

Time to get a snapshot of where the target group of students I am supporting at Panmure Bridge are at the end of Term One.

I carried out the phonics assessment in the Criterion Assessment and Robyn Anderson has kindly shared her results from Term  One.

After looking at this data there is a need to continue with the  Phonics programme that Robyn has carefully crafted.  It is also interesting to note the other factors that are impacting on student progress including self-esteem, attitude. confidence and self-esteem.

Robyn is using the data to create a Needs focused 'Phonics programme" to cater for her year 7/8 students who still need to grasp a full understanding of phonics.

Robyn Anderson blogged about our meeting. Across school teacher support.

Why are our students not getting the support they need.

This year I have been working with the Team from the Welcome to School project to gather assessment information on the students they assessed two years ago.

Moira Nelson SLT has reassessed these students on their Core language skills including Receptive and Expressive language. Some students have made great progress, for example, a student moving from 1st percentile to the 63rd!!
However, she also found several students who are significantly below in Language.
We were interested to see if the students who were still significantly below have been identified by the school and receiving additional support from the Ministry or RTLB.

Very few of the students were receiving additional support from an outside agency and those that were seemed to have support mostly due to social and behavioural needs.

Why are our students not getting the support they need?

I have identified the following hypothesis

1.  When you have a large number of students in your classroom with language and learning delays you are less likely to identify the students that are significantly below.

2. There is no official MOE provided assessment or screening tool for teachers or Senco's to use to easily identify these students.

3. Most of our Manaiakalani schools do not have a designated Senco person who has the time and expertise to identify and assess these students. Our Sencos are often the Principals or Senior Management, who have this responsibility on top of an already extensive workload.
Schools in higher decile areas often have a designated teacher with responsibility for Special needs and release time to carry out this role.

This impacts on schools abilities to assess students and once identified have time to complete the required paperwork to request additional support needed from outside agencies.


In class support:
 I  had the opportunity to be part of an allocation meeting. Students receive points under different criteria. The first criteria is whether a student has had previous intervention or assessments etc from other agencies or professionals eg SLT, Paediatrician, Occupational therapist etc.
As we are all aware currently the easiest way to access these is private, a cost our families can not afford.  Some students had seen multiple professionals so gained several points towards receiving in-class support funding. In one case a student received 6 points before we looked at his academic results.
Students in our COL may have been academically lower than these students but did not gain enough points to receive funding.  This puts our students at a significant disadvantage.

RTlit

There are projects being run in the community by the RTlit that would benefit our students significantly. Currently, the allocation of these projects has gone to schools in higher decile areas within our immediate community.
Is this because they have Senco who can be released to find out about these projects, attend meetings in school time and assess the students and complete the applications before our COL schools have even heard about these projects?



I wonder if the new Learning Support Coordinators that have been promised for 2020 will be allocated to our schools?

Our students deserve better !

Inclusive School Curriculum - A Curriculum for ALL !

NZC- A Curriculum for all.

Framework for an Inclusive School Curriculum.

This framework embodies the key elements of an inclusive school curriculum that together ensure progress and achievement for all students.

"The New Zealand Curriculum is a clear statement of what we deem important in education. It takes as its starting point a vision of our young people as lifelong learners who are confident and creative, connected, and actively involved."

The New Zealand Curriculum, 2007, page 4

A flexible framework

"The New Zealand Curriculum, together with the Qualifications Framework, gives schools the flexibility to design and deliver programmes that will engage all students and offer them appropriate learning pathways."

The New Zealand Curriculum, 2007, page 41

The New Zealand Curriculum supports schools to ensure that teaching and learning are effective and engaging for all. When teaching, learning, and assessment recognise and respond to the unique differences of individuals, all students can learn.

The New Zealand Curriculum is not prescriptive. Its learning areas provide a flexible foundation for exploring, evaluating, integrating, and enhancing knowledge. Its key competencies, which capture learning capabilities and dispositions, strengthen the learning areas by supporting students to value curiosity, thinking, self-management, perseverance, collaboration, and caring for others.

Example of English differentiated planning 

My Inquiry .. My scanning .. My hunch

Scanning

I have been visiting classrooms and talking to teachers and reviewing current assessment practices in the mainstream classes from new entrants to year 7 and Sommerville Special school classes year 1 - year 11. There are several incidences of students who struggle with reading who fail the current assessments and do not meet National Standards.  The difficulty being faced by some teachers is that the currently used assessments gauge the students as having failed and give no indication of next steps and current skills. Teachers are left with limited information and are therefore continuing with more of the same strategies that have been unsuccessful.

Hunch

By using a range of assessments that focus on fine grained steps and achievements in reading, teachers will be able to use the information to create appropriate programs and goals for students who are currently failing in their reading. If teachers use this information well then reading levels should improve for those students.

Questions

Will using fine-grained assessments improve teacher capacity for setting appropriate goals for students who fail to register on standardised tests?