In this session, we reconnected with our shared value of Equity. It is tempting to make sure that everyone gets 'the same' teaching, especially with a more standardised curriculum that puts a spotlight on achievement vs. how long a child has been at school. In practice, however, we know that this can lead to a 'one size fits all' approach which is not equitable: instead, we need to consider what each of our children needs in order to access the learning and experience success.
In our previous PLD, we explored the role of gender in achievement inequalities in literacy. Although we have more boys than girls who struggle in Writing, close examination of our cohort suggests that gender may be something they have in common, but it may not offer too many clues to how to raise their achievement. However, many of these children do have additional 'things going on' that we need to attend to.
We examined the question of whether all of our learners are getting what they need to become successful writers. The Writing Passports are one piece of this puzzle, identifying those who need something a little different or extra, and also capturing what works and enables them to succeed.
How do we know what they need?
- knowing our children
- engaging with whānau
- effective info sharing between teachers
- assessment, moderation
- expertise regarding anything additional that's 'going on' for them e.g. what does a child with APD, ADHD etc. typically need to learn best?
2. What do we do once we know?
- Are we acting on our knowledge?
- Do we have knowledge gaps? E.g. do we know enough about APD (for instance) to meet our students' needs?
- Do we know how to support our ELLs best? (We know we don't!)
- What are we doing and what else is possible?
So, we began a process of auditing our Writing teaching, learning environment, additional supports in order make sure that we are giving our focus learners what they need to learn best.
This means thinking holistically about things like the learning environment, cognitive load, resources, communication styles and also what the curriculum demands at different stages in order to determine useful goals and next steps.
Outcomes
- We identified that we have knowledge gaps in certain areas. How best to support our ELLs is one. There was also a desire to know more about dyslexia and APD: in general terms, what serves these learners best and are we doing all the basic things in this space (before thinking above and beyond)?
- How do we keep ourselves accountable to the actions we know we need to take? This is an ongoing conversation. While we may be able to identify needs and possible actions, are we sticking with these actions consistently so that we can see whether they are working?
