Te Mata School “Seek the Heights”

In 2008 there were a number of children we believed that were simply not making sufficient progress. Was our induction to school moving our children fast

enough?

To check our hunch ,within the first two weeks of 2009 we tested two out of four Year 1 classes – 39 children to ascertain their reading and writing levels

The data showed more than half of the 39 students reading at Magenta /Red level and not able to identify all letters / sounds .

This was well below our assumption . Whilst all our children reached expectation by the end of 40 weeks we could do substantially better!

We used the Literacy progressions to provide the impetus to create the change we needed

We completely revised our expectations around School entry…20 weeks and 40 weeks

In the past we have withdrawn individual children to work with Teacher Aides with marginal success.

Had a Teacher Aide work in the room alongside children again with marginal success.

Had employed at Teacher to withdraw groups of children ….Again marginal success

We decided that we needed a super team and organised a skilled Literacy teacher and 3 teacher aides to work in the literacy time with the Classroom Teacher to accelerate the learning of all of our year 0 /1 students . The 2 teachers take the lowest groups and the teacher aides the other groups.

This would lead to increased ownership and sustainability by the classroom teacher.

Working alongside teachers

Phonics Monitoring with

information rigour Teacher inquiry Targeted interventions SENCO Leadership release Resources suited to

the programme

Phonics ( Yolanda Sorrels’ version) That our children would be through all of the 5 Stages of

phonics in the first year They would know all their letter names and sounds

( Initial ,End ,medial ,chunks )within that time Phonics would be taught across year 0-3 daily. Tested 2x per

year

Term 1 teacher time covered by accumulated banked staffing surpluses accrued over January holidays

3 teacher aides all morning

4 days per week at approx $16 per hour = 3 T -aides x 4hrs x 4days x 9 wks x$16 =$7000 This money will cater for Literacy acceleration for 145

this year

2010 12 children were targetted. 10 of the

12 reached the expected Standard at 20 weeks

2011 16 children targetted at the start of

the year. 12 of te 16 at the expected Standard at 20 weeks

? Year 1 o 63% of children are working at or above the end of year

expectation. o 37% are just below the end of year expectation, however they are

sitting within the acceptable range for the beginning of Year 1.

o 100% of children are either working at or above the end of year expectation.

? Year 2 o 55% of children are working at or above the end of year

expectation. o 45% are just below the end of year expectation, however they

are sitting within the acceptable range for the beginning of Year 2.

o 100% of children are working within or above the expected beginning of the year level.

? Year 3 o 59% of children are working at or above the end of year

expectation. o 39% are just below the end of year expectation, however they

are sitting within the acceptable range for the beginning of Year 3.

o 2% (2) are working at Level 1ii and are identified as having “cause for concern”.

o 98% of children are working within or above the expected beginning of the year level.

Teacher pressure and monitoring

Raising expectations with speed of progress

Focus on Writing/Phonics

Spin offs into reading acceleration

Shared expectations

Targetted funding and resourcing

ALL teachers aware of the progressions

Best use of teacher skill base

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

22

24

26

28

30

32

40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100

Weeks at School

Reading Level

Upper Nat Ave

Lower Nat Ave

Arianna

Nika

Madison

Rubie

Brooke

Alannah

Grace

Lucy

Ben

Joe

Finley

Joshua

Mathew

Cooper

Oliver G

Pierce

George

Oliver L

Jack

Luka

9%

26%

32%

9%0%5%

19%

1

2

3

4

5

6

7