Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

Below are some of my preliminary findings about the nature and extent of my my achievement challenge (achievement of boys in writing).  e-asTTle results term 1:  Our e-asTTle results for term 1 showed that we have 47% of our hub below expected level for writing. As you can see in the graph above, there is a high percentage of gaps in spelling, punctuation and organisation.  This aligns with our year group data:  - Year 3 2019 -  Writing   67% met or exceeded expected levels - Year 4 2019 - Writing 71% met or exceeded expected levels Schooltalk gap analysis confirms this:

Below are a list of tools/measures/approaches that I plan to use to  get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to writing. e-asTTle writing data: I plan to use this data to compare the levels of progress from term 1 and term 4. This will show me areas in writing that the learners have improved on. The questionnaire at the beginning of the e-asTTle will also indicate if there has been a shift in learners viewpoints around writing.  Phonics/spelling assessment: I haven't decided the best way to measure this but I have been looking into Yolanda Soryl's phonics programme and how I might be able to do an assessment in Term 1 and Term 4 to measure the progress my learners have made in phonics.  Schooltalk gap analysis: A Schooltalk gap analysis will show me where my learners have gaps in their writing. I will be able to track and record the progress of my target learners throughout the whole year on Schooltalk.  Learner ...

To start the year, our TOD's were led by Carolyn Stuart from weaving futures, specialist in Deign Thinking.  We learnt about empathy mapping and creating 'Learner User Stories' to help us build deeper relationships with our Maori learners and parents.  A common pattern that we have noticed is that these learners:  - Do not like writing! - Feel that they are not good at writing! - Data shows these learners are below expected level for writing! Looking forward into my inquiry for 2020, could I continue my learning around oral language and transfer it into my writing programme?  Are there other areas of literacy that I could look into (phonics and vocabulary) that could improve my learners writing? 

2019 was a huge year of learning for me! So many PD opportunities and rich conversations with other teachers and experts. My inquiry into increasing oral language strategies saw huge shifts in reading! Some reflections about my inquiry 2019:  What worked well:  Having the support of other teachers and schools to collaborate with, really strengthened my inquiry. I was very lucky to have a huge variety of PLD sessions to attend that related to my inquiry focus. I found the assessments such as running records and the oral language Combi Tool very useful in collecting and analysing the data of my learners.  Challenges:  I initially wanted to focus in on literacy as a whole - oral language being the foundation to reading and writing. Although I'm sure my inquiry impacted the data for reading and writing, I found it difficult to collect data and analyse it across 2 subject. Especially since I was not teaching some learners for both reading and writing...