Staff PLD: Informing our Staff about our Inquiries

Today we presented our inquiries to our staff to take stock of where we were at.

My inquiry:

Can understanding PAT testing better support our year 9 readers.

Do I kids know their learning and can they articulate it?  

• Gathered Evidence through survey’s and PAT’s.  

• Scanned using my own teacher judgement and discussions with some of the other teachers of these classes.

• Created hypothesis about my own teaching eg. If I really unpacked the PAT tests and understood the gaps, I can help my learners.  If they could understand the tests, they will know why they are important.

Research suggests a whole lot of things eg. like creating communities of readers and a school with a culture of reading.  I remember we did Accelerated readers and we used once a day pick up a box in here with a class set of different books for students to read because research showed that if they read for a least 20 mins a day, that would accelerate their literacy rate.  What are we doing now?

Research in a secondary school found Huntly College 

Vision Huntly College is associated with reading; leaders are readers

Mission Working together to support staff and the student leaders to promote and inspire Huntly College students to read for pleasure and wellbeing

Our knowledge of reading at Huntly College comes from research over several years by two different groups in the school using different methods. The first investigation of the reading culture at Huntly College was carried out in 2019 when a curious teacher new to the school wanted to find out if and what students at Huntly College were reading. What was found out was that the reading culture at Huntly College was minimal with few students reading and one parent specifically saying not to teach Māori boys to read. To quote, "Don't teach Māori boys to read, all they need to do is know how to dig holes on my farm".

I’m interested in finding out what is our current reading culture at Tamaki, do we need a refresh and what becomes of our school library and reading programmes now that our lovely Librarian Ebenezer is gone.

NEXT STAGES we are currently looking at is our Plan stages:

What is a PAT test?

Identifying key gaps and using the data more effectively to create strategies to shift achievement

Know your learners! Knowledge & skills in making meaning (reading), relevant to all learning areas. Your learners in comparison to other learners in Tamaki College, as well as in comparison to national learners. Grouping of your learners.  Use the range, highest to lowest. Identify gaps & needs. Help to use differentiated teaching strategies. ‘No one size fit all’ No one is left behind

Draft unit plan for ESOL here

Create a teaching template fit for Sos using the Literacy matrix for reading around the 3 Big Ideas:

• Make sense of written text 

• Read critically 

• Read for different purposes

Working with Graeme Ball who is our NCEA facilitator

Steps Web programme with Mary-Ann

Working with the Level Up team to support a school wide approach to literacy and numeracy

Survey of students ‘what are you reading?’

Survey of staff 

Intervention:  Trying these strategies

Research for reading

An inquiry into building a culture of reading at Huntly College

Hands up if in the last week you have read a book (non-fiction, fiction).  Did you know that research shows that if teachers read and share a love of reading so we should take into account reading role model