Thanks for coming today.
We’re going to just have a chat about
the ways that we might look at
the Year 10 English programs,
using data that we’ve collected
to evaluate what we’re teaching,
and what the specific needs of our kids are,
and how we might differentiate
our programs in order to
cater for the individual
needs of the students.
I’m Cilla Doyle.
I’m the Dean of Studies
at St. Philip’s Christian College, Port Stephens.
What do you think are some of the
things that we might have?
Prepared assessments.
So prepared assessment tasks,
that’s one thing,
which we don’t really have
at the beginning of the year.
So what are we going to use? -We’ve got NAPLAN.
NAPLAN. -We’ve got detailed results.
So we’ve got quite detailed NAPLAN results.
There are other things that we might use
to look at specific needs of our kids?
The session today was necessary
because having looked at
the English programs that were in place,
I was aware that
they were very generic programs
that did not take into account
any of the specific learning needs
of the students.
The students often know
their strengths and weaknesses.
So if we can say to them,
“I’ve identified these strengths with you.
Do you agree?”
And they’ll probably be very honest
and open or they seem to be, so far.
Then you say,
“I think we need to work on this particular aspect
and we’re aiming to get you your personal best,
a couple more marks.
We can do this.”
I think that’s helpful.
I think information that we gain from parents,
I know that can be pretty particularly valuable.
What they actually
know about their students
that they don’t realise is data
that they can use in preparing their programs.
Resources that they can use,
for example,
parents,
teaching staff that had
had the students earlier on,
NAPLAN results,
the different sorts of things we know about
what our students can and can’t do.
I want to have a little look at
the NAPLAN results for 2011.
Now, as far as the state is concerned,
we don’t do too badly.
I am particularly concerned
about our results compared to the region
and to the section.
If you look at the spelling column
for the band 10s,
1.8 compared to
10.3 in the region.
Wow.
Could we comment about
reading and writing?
Band 9, reading and writing responses
are both substantially lower.
We’re doing okay in the middle,
but we’re not doing well at the top.
We’re not extending our kids
into those top bands -That is a pattern.
That’s a pattern that we've found
reflected across school certificate
and high school certificate.
Spelling in particular
is a very weak area across the school.
Punctuation and grammar are
things that our students
are probably not strong
at implementing in their writing.
It’s really adjectives kept coming up,
which really surprised me.
It’s interesting that you say
that you expected
they would have learned about it
because that first one,
identifiers and adjectives, is actually
a Stage Two outcome.
Maybe it wasn’t taught that well
when they were in primary school and
because other teachers,
as the children get older,
assume that they have this knowledge already.
If it’s been missed earlier on,
it just seems to get skipped
over all the time.
It’s one thing to encourage
insightful thinking.
But then they need to represent that
by following the mechanics of language.
So where do we go from here?
It needs to be rewritten according
and with a particular class in mind,
rather than a generic.
Yeah, I think that
also is something that’s
desperately needed.
So the teachers will go away
and review their programs
and come up with some strategies.
Then, Michael will coordinate
those programs.
At the end of the term, we will re-evaluate,
collect some more data on the students,
do some assessment
and see whether or not those strategies
are actually working in improving
the learning outcomes
for the students in the classes.
Thank you very much.
Meeting closed.
How do you lead colleagues
to evaluate the effectiveness
of learning and teaching programs,
to ensure specific learning needs
of students are being met?
How can you lead and influence others
to improve teaching practice
based on student performance?