A Classroom View
Information about classroom implementation of the English Curriculum will be developed here.
Year 3 Spelling | Year 6 Literacy Lesson 1 | Year 6 Literacy Lesson 2
Information about classroom implementation of the English Curriculum will be developed here.
Year 3 Spelling | Year 6 Literacy Lesson 1 | Year 6 Literacy Lesson 2
Information to support teachers in implementing a range of approaches that will help students to develop the knowledge, strategies, and awareness required to become fully literate.
Planning with the Australian Curriculum English
Developing detailed year level and classroom English planning using the Australian Curriculum is considered a Good First Teaching practice in that it is a comprehensive and continuous process that ensures high expectations for each student at our school.
The Australian Curriculum uses a Context Text Model of language, which basically approaches language as a complete meaning-making system, the parts of which function in relational ways. The context-text model provides the means to interrelate the 3 strands of the Australian Curriculum: English – Language, Literature and Literacy.
Our planning process for Good First Teaching in English should align with BCE’s Model of Pedagogy. The Model of Pedagogy brings together the principles and practices of learning and teaching that lead to success for our learners. This clip articulates a process for using the approved English Curriculum to establish clear and visible learning intentions, success criteria and learning goals in English for all students.
Focus
First and foremost, the English line of sight [OLD] [BCE] document should be used in conjunction with the approved curriculum in order to access the elaborations, links to the general capabilities and cross curriculum priorities. When we say “the approved curriculum”, we refer to the information provided in the 3 components of the YL page: the YLD, CD and AS.
Establish
Teachers use the identified aspects of the curriculum (achievement standard and content descriptions) to establish success criteria that identify the depth of understanding, application of knowledge and sophistication of skills that students require to be successful.
Activate
The explicit teaching of literacy involves teaching the language needed to read, write, speak, listen, view and create in meaningful ways in all contexts and curriculum areas. Teachers are to use a gradual release of responsibility approach to activate learning that is visible and leads to successful progress and achievement for each learner. The gradual release of responsibility occurs over a day, a week, a term and a year and is specifically planned to build each student’s capacity to apply their learning independently.
Teachers also activate by eliciting evidence of learning from students, allowing them to identify evidence of their own progress towards the learning intention referring to the success criteria.
Respond
Teachers provide feedback that is directly linked to learning intentions and success criteria and support student goal setting by framing goals that are directly linked to the identified learning intentions and success criteria.
Teachers interpret evidence using annotations related to the learning intention and success criteria.
Evaluate
Teachers reflect on evidence of learning and continue to plan for and scaffold further learning.
Learning Progressions
Teachers can make use of Learning Progressions and put them in the hands of students to support their use of the language of learning intentions and to make learning more visible. The learning progressions in English have been developed directly from the achievement standard for each year level of the English curriculum.
More information on how to successfully plan quality teaching and learning using the English Curriculum can be found here.
Early and Ongoing Response through data collection and monitoring student progress which informs ongoing teacher planning
Early and ongoing response through data collection and monitoring is considered an essential Good First Teaching practice in that data is used to:
It is expected that evidence of learning will be collected through a systematic, evidence-based and coordinated process. Literacy learning and teaching in Years Prep-6 is guided by the use of mandated Monitoring Tools:
Concepts About Print (Prep Only) |
PM Benchmarking
Writing Analysis
Formative Assessment Strategies and Tools
In addition to monitoring tools, it is expected that formative assessment is an explicitly planned regular part of literacy learning and teaching. Formative assessment should be assessment that actually shapes learning. Assessment becomes formative when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs. Five key strategies of formative assessment can be aligned with the processes of finding out where learners are in their learning, finding out where they are going, and finding out how to get there with the roles of teacher, learner and peer.
Evidence of student learning should be collected for all students in an ongoing fashion and be readily accessible to support conversations about student learning, for example, during a Review and Response Meeting and regular meetings with the Primary Learning Leader and Principal.
Evidence of learning should reflect the knowledge, understanding and skills described in the relevant achievement standards and reflected in success criteria developed by the teacher.
Evidence of Learning
The collection of evidence of and for student learning is considered an essential Good First Teaching practice for the teaching of all learning areas in that it is a process through which teachers identify, gather and interpret information about student achievement and learning in order to improve, enhance and plan for further learning.
It is expected that evidence of student learning be collected for all students in an ongoing fashion and be readily accessible to support conversations about student learning, for example, during a Review and Response Meeting and regular meetings with the Primary Learning Leader.
Evidence of learning should reflect the knowledge, understanding and skills described in the relevant achievement standards and reflected in success criteria developed by the teacher.
Collection of Evidence for Learning includes gathering information about the learners, analysing and interpreting that information and using that information to inform and shape the learning and teaching process.
Collection of Evidence of Learning assists teachers to use student learning to assess student achievement against goals and standards. It is expected that teachers use a range of techniques and tools to gather the evidence required to make judgements about students' progress and achievement, which in turn, informs ongoing teaching. These techniques should focus on students' demonstrations of learning, be comprehensive, valid and reliable and take account of individual learners.
A range of assessment tools should be used to allow teachers to cater for all learners and learning situations, to measure the impact of their teaching and plan for further learning and teaching.
Time Allocation in the Teaching of English
Prep – Year 2
It is considered essential that students in Prep to Year 2 have access to high quality good first teaching in English for a minimum of 1.5 hours per day. This includes the explicit teaching of of language, literature and literacy within the context of the Australian Curriculum: English.
Year 3 – Year 6
It is considered essential that students in Year 3 to Year 6 have access to high quality good first teaching in English for a minimum of 1 hour per day. This includes the explicit teaching of of language, literature and literacy within the context of the Australian Curriculum: English.
The time allocated to the teaching of English is timetabled on classroom timetables and responds to the planning, teaching and assessment required to develop each student's knowledge, understanding and skills to comprehend and compose text.
Professional Learning and Goal Setting
The development of Teacher Professional Learning and Goal Setting Plans is considered to be an essential Good First Teaching practice in that it supports the growth and development of teachers. They are supported to be reflective, self directed learners who continuously strive to improve their teaching practice so they can enhance the learning achievement and progress of all our students.
It is expected that all teachers will develop clearly articulated agreed upon goals which are informed by
It is important to develop goals within the context of a Professional Learning Plan. Writing a goal statement is only the first step in achieving a goal. There are many subsequent steps such as;
Goal Writing Stems
Information to Support Goal Setting [pdf]
Reflection Before Goal Setting for Teachers [Word]
Reflection Before Goal Setting for School Officers [Word]
Individual Professional Learning Plan for Teachers [Word]
Individual Professional Learning Plan for School Officers [Word]
Student Goal Setting and Learning Targets
Students engaging in self assessment strategies including goal setting and establishing learning targets is considered an essential Good First Teaching practice in that it helps students take responsibility for their own learning is regarded as vital to success at school.
Teachers at Our Lady of Dolours share with students the success criteria for all learning experiences and ensure that students understand the success criteria. In providing students with feedback to help them improve, teachers support students in setting active and measurable goals and learning targets to achieve that improvement.
Process of setting Learning Goals and Targets
Student self-assessment begins with setting learning targets, proceeds through the production of work that aims to achieve those targets, to the assessment of the work to see if it does in fact meet the targets and then, finally, to the setting of new targets or revising ones that were not achieved.
Diagrammatically, the process looks like this:
Ideally, students increasingly assume responsibility for the setting of their learning targets and also for the monitoring or tracking of those targets. In practice, of course, students' ability to do this will vary, and teacher assistance will be more important to some students than others.
The language of the curriculum should always be used to support the construction of learning targets but simplified where possible. Students need to be able to articulate what their learning target is and what they need to do in order to achieve it. Using ‘I Can’ language is appropriate for the establishment of a learning target. An example could be as follows:
‘I can connect ideas in texts using compound sentences with two or more clauses usually linked by a conjunction’
Students who engage with goal and target setting experience increased motivation, self-esteem and improvement in their learning because they know how they learn rather than just what they learn. Teachers who engage student goal and target setting see the responsibility for learning shifting from them to the students, see an increase in student motivation and are able to use the feedback from their students about how they learn to shape future teaching and learning.
The explicit teaching of literacy involves teaching the language needed to read, write, speak, listen, view and create in meaningful ways in all contexts and curriculum areas.
Oral Language is the foundation of all teaching and learning. It is the means through which we communicate feelings, thoughts and experience and is an integral part of thinking.
Students need to engage in daily purposeful talk, which is:
Purposeful talk includes:
Teaching Reading
Teaching Writing
K-Web provides more information on each of these strategies here.
Familiarising
Modelling
Sharing
Guiding
Working Independently
Gradual Release of Responsibility Strategies
This document expands the following for each strategy.
K-Web provides more information on each of these strategies here.
Familiarising
Modelling
Sharing/Joint Construction
Guiding
Working Independently
This document expands the following for each strategy.
Writing Criteria Sheets
Download Writing Criteria Sheets with Comment Space from the OLD School Portal
School leadership teams identify the factors that influence the extent to which their school is ready to ‘learn professionally’ so that the quality of the teaching is improved or enhanced in its capacity to enhance students’ literacy knowledge and skills.
The Principal, Primary Learning Leader, Co Teacher and Support Teacher Inclusive Education are integral to the success of Good First Teaching and each have important roles to play that ultimately contribute to optimum learning outcomes of students.
Reviewing and Monitoring Planning
The reviewing and monitoring of teacher planning in English is considered part of essential Good First Teaching practice in that it is a process through which teachers and school leadership maintain high expectations for students and provide their ongoing entitlement to knowledge, understanding and skills that provide a foundation for successful and lifelong learning.
All teachers of English at Our Lady of Dolours will engage in whole school planning. By the end of each term, teachers will have highlighted relevant aspects of English content along with identified aspects of the achievement standard. This occurs on the year level Line of Sight document which is located on the Staff Portal.
All teachers of English at Our Lady of Dolours will engage in year level class and student planning. This planning makes further sense of whole school planning and details:
Year level class and student planning should be uploaded to the staff portal on a fortnightly basis and will be reviewed with feedback available to further build teacher capacity and improve student outcomes.
At Our Lady of Dolours, teacher leaders have regular conversations with students around five key questions that support the answer to the question, ‘How do we know all students are learning in our school?’ These questions are asked during Walk and Talks and were derived from the work of Lyn Sharrat.
Similar to the questions that are asked of students, questions are also generated to be asked of teachers in order to gather evidence of our teachers’ intentional teaching. Research suggests that teachers who accurately can describe their teaching and ways to improve will close the achievement gap amongst their students
The five questions of teachers about why they make the decisions they make, are asked regularly and support any professional learning and action necessary to ensure that all teaching is occurring at a competent or preferably high-impact level.
The five questions for Teachers from Lyn Sharratt are:
The five questions for teachers are an essential Good First Teaching strategy for the teaching of English. The answers teachers provide to the questions facilitate ongoing feedback to school leadership and inform subsequent decisions that need to be made. All teachers can be expected to be asked these questions at least twice per term and be supported in their growth as high impact teachers at all times.
Ongoing Goal Setting and Review
As staff at Our Lady of Dolours immerse themselves into professional learning opportunities centred on Good First Teaching practices and strategies, shared professional learning goals will become more visible. The success of shared goals will then determine our progression through a process of ongoing goal setting continually focussed on building teacher capacity to bring about high expectations and the achievement of high standards in literacy for students.
We recognise that evidence provides the basis for ongoing feedback, reflection and further development. Collecting and reviewing evidence of our progression of learning will assist us in understanding our progress with respect to our shared performance. Importantly, evidence will allow us to identify any additional or different action that may be required in order to achieve future shared learning goals.
The image below captures the essence of our shared cycle of learning growth as we embrace and embed Good First Teaching practices and strategies.
Roles and Responsibilities
At Our Lady of Dolours School, the following staff have significant responsibilities in bringing about Good First Teaching in English, ensuring all students have access to high quality and evidenced based learning. These staff members provide the necessary leadership to teachers in shaping a path of success in literacy for all students.
The Principal, Primary Learning Leader, Co Teacher and Support Teacher – Inclusive Education work collaboratively to ensure all students have the best access to Good First Teaching in literacy.
Principal
The main role of the Principal is to ensure that Our Lady of Dolours School allows both staff and students to put literacy learning at the center of their daily activities. Such a healthy school environment should be characterized by the sense teachers have that they are part of a community of professionals focused on good first literacy instruction.
The Principal will create the necessary conditions that include:
Primary Learning Leader
The main role of the Primary Learning Leader is to promote Good First Teaching practice and strategies into classroom practice. They enhance teacher effectiveness through mentoring and coaching, professional learning, collaboration and co-operation, thus enhancing teacher capacity to deliver improved literacy outcomes for students.
The Primary Learning Leader will
Support Teacher – Inclusive Education
The main role of the Support Teacher – Inclusive Education is to collaborate with teachers to analyse and interpret student literacy learning data and ask relevant questions to assist in the identification of, and response to, specific student learning needs.
The Support Teacher – Inclusive Education will:
Co Teacher
The main role of the Co-Teacher is to support the facilitation of literacy learning, working alongside selected teachers as equals, building joint capacity in relation to Good First Teaching strategies and practices.
The Co-Teacher will:
Facilitate High Yield Strategies
Learning Walks and Talks as Feedback about Whole School Progress
Learning Walks and Talks are considered an essential Good First Teaching and high impact strategy in that they are a process for promoting growth in both teacher capacity and in student learning outcomes.
Learning Walks and Talks provide a way for the leadership of our school to purposefully and intentionally discern from students what our teachers have been teaching. The process involves six clear stages built around the use of five simple questions asked of students:
The information gathered throughout the process is non evaluative and non judgemental, but rather provides formative assessment for our school on how well we are going with the professional learning of our teachers. The responses gathered enable our school to think about what our next level of learning will be.
Learning Walks and Talks are held at least two times per week and focus on the goals of professional learning for our staff.
This video offers some more information about Learning Walks and Talks.
Data Walls and Data Wall Conversations
The construction and use of Data Walls and Data Wall Conversations is considered an essential Good First Teaching and high impact strategy in that they offer us non static visual display of evidence of student achievement and growth.
Our Data Walls help us discern, through rich conversations between teachers and leaders, who and where our students are in terms of their achievement and progress and who the students of concern are whether that mean they are struggling of require extending. The focus of our conversations is purely about what we are we going to do to bring each student forward in their learning
It is through conversations around a data wall that opportunities for ongoing teacher professional learning emerge and the means by which students requiring a Review and Response approach are identified.
It is an expectation that teachers develop a shared ownership of our data walls by bringing evidence of student growth and achievement for whole staff or small group discussion at least once per term before moving students on the wall. Teachers engage with the data through a problem solving approach; asking key questions like:
Review and Response Processes
Review and Response to Learner Needs
Reviewing and Responding to student learning needs is considered an essential Good First Teaching strategy for the teaching of all learning areas.
When a student is not progressing with intended learning or already shows they know the intended learning, the following should occur as part of a Review and Response approach:
More detailed information on the sequential process of Review and Response [pdf]
This process continues until the student displays satisfactory progress. Specific adjustments may also be embedded and sit alongside instructional practice.
A record of each Review and Response meeting is taken and copies provided by the team to the classroom teacher. These are also saved centrally and support the building of an ongoing student learning profile.
When a third or fourth Review and Response Meeting is required for a student, consideration should be given to a more intensive and targeted response with increasingly frequent reviews. A more specialised team may be developed to include the Support Teacher for Inclusive Education and external support agencies if necessary. Resources will be allocated in consultation with the Principal.
Checklist to support teachers with preparations for the Review and Response Process [pdf]
Review and Response Meeting Protocols [pdf]
Review and Response Meeting Record 1 [Word]
Review and Response Meeting Record 2 [Word]
Review and Response Meeting Record 3 [Word]
Review and Response Transition Meeting [Word]
Further information on the Review and Response Process can be sourced from the BCE kWeb.
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