Criterion #5 My School Makes Sure That As I Progress I Don’t
Develop Gaps
In My English Language, Mathematics And
Digital Skills
Learning (Aligns with SDP elements #s4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
The Red is an edit commenced on 21/07/2017
Tom now turned his attention to the
academic program as set out in the prescribed curriculum. He was pleased that an Australian National
Curriculum (ANC) had been developed over recent years and was rather taken by
it. He understood that each state with
its constitutional responsibility for compulsory primary and secondary
schooling was taking on the ANC with state level modifications. Within this context he allowed his thinking
about the learning program to be based on the latest
version of the ANC (version 8) as published on the ACARA website. He did not
want teachers to have to be curriculum developers in any major way. They might make variations and innovate in
various ways but they were too busy with daily teaching to have time to build a
curriculum. What was vital however was
that teachers were well informed of the underlying rationale of the syllabuses
in the curriculum such that they could be confident they were mentoring their
students to be fit for life in the present and the future.
As part of this stage of his
thinking Tom felt a nagging concern emanating from two articles he had recently
read. He decided to record these at this stage of his developing treatise on
school effectiveness.
Patrick Garnett, chairman of the
School Curriculum and Standards Authority (formally the Curriculum Council of
Western Australia) which is a quasi government body that has responsibility for
the curriculum offerings of Western Australian government schools opens an
article “Giving students their best chance of success”, The West Australian, 10 March 2014, p16 as follows:
“Students, their families and the
community have a right to expect that after 13 years of schooling, our young
people should emerge prepared for success at university, in training or the
workplace. And, after 13 years of
schooling, students should be able to demonstrate an adequate level; of
literacy and numeracy.” He indicates
that “…significant concerns have been
raised regarding the standards achieved by students who are leaving school with
a WA Certificate of Education.”
As a result of such concerns he
notes that: “Starting this week, Year 10
students across WA will for the first time, sit an Online Literacy and Numeracy
Assessment (OLNA), designed to measure their levels of literacy (reading and
writing) and numeracy.” The aim is to use these tests to ascertain whether some
year 10 students need to take “…new foundation English and/or foundation mathematics
courses which are designed to focus on achieving the minimum levels of literacy
and numeracy…..”
Garnett indicates that: “The minimum standard of literacy and
numeracy represents Level 3 in the Australian Core Skills Framework, a set of
benchmarks for a range of essential skills.
The framework was established by the Commonwealth government in
2008.” Level 3 is viewed “…as the
minimum standard required to live and work in a knowledge-based economy.”
There was a follow up article that
added to Tom’s concern. In The West Australian, 10 August 2015,
p3, the Education Editor Bethany Hiatt
wrote an article titled “Tests reveal teens’ shortfalls,” in which she cites
the preliminary results of the first round (held in March 2015) of the above
compulsory Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (OLNA) tests, which students
“must pass to get a WA Certificate of Education” awarded at the end of a
successful year 12. Hiatt reports:
“One in three Year 10 students was
unable to meet the minimum numeracy standard to graduate from high school…”
“34 per cent of Year 10s did not
meet the benchmark for numeracy.”
“About 27 per cent of Year 10s did
not make the reading standard and 29 per cent did not meet the writing
benchmark.”
“…two-thirds of Year 10s had met the
standard required of them by the end of year 12.”
“So far 26 per cent of year 11
students have not met the numeracy standard after what may have been the third
attempt for some.”
“In reading, 21 per cent of Year 11s
did not make the standard and 23 per cent did not meet the writing benchmark.”
Those WA Year 10s who were required
to do the OLNA tests did not reach band eight level on the Year 9 NAPLAN (National
Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) tests. “They have six chances to complete the test
before the end of year 12 or they can return to sit it after leaving school”.
Tom felt it was laudable that the
problem of students exiting year 12 illiterate and innumerate had been
recognized but sadly to him this seemed to be shutting the stable door after
the horse had bolted. His answer was to
move students on to new learning based on mastery of necessary precursors from
the very first years at primary school.
The aim was to eliminate cumulative deficits in learning and make such
year 10 testing unnecessary. If an
accumulation of gaps was allowed to develop up to year 10 there was a grave
danger of the Leopards being seriously disillusioned about school. He was worried that the OLNA tests would
create a new pressure on top of NAPLAN (see
Appendix ?)testing.
Tom reminded me that he had
previously described an age cohort entering formal schooling in practical terms
as three identifiable groups namely, the Panthers, the Jaguars and the
Leopards. He further reminded me that
these groups were in the normal school stream as he was not writing about
students who were in Special Schools
where their differences were the consequence of Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome,
serious hearing impairment and so on. Tom based his description of his three
groups in terms of curriculum subjects such as mathematics being organised in
year levels Foundation to Year 10 as in the ANC. Thus the Panthers were that group who
attained the prescribed learning outcomes for say year 4 mathematics in less
than the academic year and needed to be further extended; the Jaguars were that
group who attained the prescribed learning outcomes for say year 4 mathematics
taking the full academic year; and the Leopards were that group who were unable
to attain the prescribed learning outcomes for say year 4 that year within the
academic year.
As he was basing his writings on the
ANC Tom debated whether it was necessary to explain to the reader in summary
terms the structure of the ANC subjects.
He decided to do this, but stressed that no matter whether each subject
was structured in year levels or bands of two years such as F-2, Years 3-4 and
so on, the Panthers would streak ahead, the Jaguars would move steadily forward
and the Leopards would take longer.
To further enhance the reader’s understanding
Tom regarded:
Primary Schooling as years
1-6;
Middle Schooling as years
7 – 8;
Lower Secondary Schooling
as years 9 - 10; and
Senior Secondary Schooling
as years 11-12.
There are some minor variations
across the states and territories of Australia.
The Structure of the ANC Subjects (version 8.0 of the ANC as
at 23/05/2017)
English: is structured in
year levels F-year 10.
Mathematics: is structured
in year levels F-year 10A.
Science: is structured in
year levels F-year 10.
Humanities & Social Sciences: is structured in year levels F-year 7: then subdivided as follows:
Humanities & Social Sciences: is structured in year levels F-year 7: then subdivided as follows:
History: is structured in
year levels year 7-year 10.
Geography: is structured
in year levels year 7 – year 10.
Civics & Citizenship: is
structured in year levels year 7 – year 10.
Economics & Business: is
structured in year levels year 7 – year 10.
The Arts: subdivided into Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music, Visual Arts where each of these subdivisions is structured in
two-year bands F-2, 3-4. 5-6, 7-8, 9-10.
Technologies: subdivided
into Design & Technologies, Digital Technologies where each of
these subdivisions is structured in two-year bands F-2, 3-4. 5-6, 7-8, 9-10.
Health & Physical Education: is structured in
two-year bands F-2, 3-4. 5-6, 7-8, 9-10.
Languages: There is a long list of languages other than
English. For some languages there is a
focus on being a second language or a first language.
Most languages are structured in
two-year bands F-2, 3-4. 5-6, 7-8, 9-10.
Work Studies: is
structured as years 9-10
For the Senior Secondary Years the subjects are usually of a 4 unit
structure over two years. They are as
expected more specialised compared to the F-10 subjects.
The F-10 subjects usually contained
Works Samples described at levels Above Satisfactory, Satisfactory and Below
Satisfactory. The Senior Secondary Subjects described content at A – E levels
with A being the most complex to E being the least complex. Thus teachers had
guidance as to how to rate student performance.
Tom accepted that the A-E ratings were necessary at Senior Secondary
level as a guide to tertiary entrance requirements. He however was not keen on the use of the Above
Satisfactory, Satisfactory and Below Satisfactory ratings for Primary and Lower
Secondary reporting to parents as he would explain later.
He noted that the F-10 curriculum of
the ANC was a 3D model with the dimensions being:
:
·
Disciplinary knowledge
in the form of the eight learning areas (subjects);
·
Seven general
capabilities of: Literacy, Numeracy, Information and Communication Technology
Capability; Critical and Creative Thinking; Personal and Social Capability;
Ethical Understanding; and Intercultural Understanding; &
·
Three current
cross-curriculum priorities of: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories
and Cultures; Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia; & sustainability.
Tom quoted a further explanation
that "the general capabilities comprise an integrated and interconnected
set of knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that apply across
subject-based content…..” (ACARA website: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/structure/ as at 22 July
2017). He also noted that the three
current cross-curriculum priorities, which are not separate subjects in
themselves, are to be developed, where relevant, through the learning area
content (ACARA website: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/structure/ as at 22 July 2017)
Tom was wedded to the idea that for
some subjects there were prerequisite knowledge, skills and understandings that
had to be mastered before moving students to new learning that required such prerequisite
mastery. To ignore this and move
students on to the new learning without the prerequisite mastery was to create
the accumulation of gaps in student learning.
The consequences of this were described above in the opening paragraphs
of this section. Such consequences are also manifest in a wider Australian
context of the negative reactions of Federal politicians and state educators to
what they see as poor NAPLAN (see
Appendix ?) test results and Australia falling behind on international
comparisons with the STEM subjects.
For Tom “mastery” was defined as
success over a spaced set of assessments such that the knowledge, skills and
understandings of the prescribed syllabus learning outcomes had been clearly
achieved on a lasting basis. He
sympathised, as he could see teachers blanching at the implications of
“mastery” for the Leopards and the ingenuity and innovation in pedagogy that
this would demand. He was confident that in this digital age there was a
plethora of alternative strategies and learning experiences that savvy teachers
could find to keep the Leopards on task towards mastery.
Tom had found that the ANC was rich
in cross subject referencing about literacy and numeracy. He saw this as a plus as teachers went about
their work.
Tom was committed to teacher
in-service within each school whereby teachers were given the opportunity to
sit with one another in discussion about how the various curriculum syllabuses
should be interpreted. Tom’s reasoning
was that this enabled teachers to go off to their classes having common
understandings about the prescribed learning outcomes in the curriculum. In the common organisational structure for
learning, whereby each teacher went off alone to their respective classes, this
to Tom was an essential in-service. It was
also obviously essential in team teaching situations. Tom had run in-service as described and found
that it was time efficient and very fruitful.
Such in-service also allowed for
informal sharing about ways to teach the subject including discussing exciting
learning experiences that would motivate student learning. Tom was confident that teachers learn a lot
from one another given the opportunity to get together.
Tom was confident that such
in-service would yield school policies for each prescribed curriculum
syllabus. These would be available to
all teachers and be particularly helpful to teachers new to a school. They could also be made available to parents.
Tom felt he had now set the context
to become more specific and realistic about his principle of ‘no gaps’
education as the centrepiece for School Effectiveness Criterion #5. He planned to outline the detail in terms of
Primary Schooling, and Lower Secondary Schooling. He would have something to say about Senior
Secondary Schooling but on a more limited basis.
Primary Schooling and ‘no gaps’ learning
Tom the practical educator was not
about to suggest a monster that teachers could not manage. For Primary schools Tom advocated that the no
gaps mastery principle be only applied to English language, Mathematics and
Digital Technologies. Tom was internally
pressured to include Science but resisted.
For all other subject areas the students would be given rich experiences
across all prescribed learning outcomes scheduled for the academic year in
preparation for the more specialised approach of the secondary school years. For these other subjects the Panthers,
Jaguars and Leopards would be moved along together all tackling the attainment
of the same learning outcomes at the same time.
Tom was aware that these views had serious implications for reporting to
parents but more about that later.
More in instalment 2.
May the Force be with you!
GD
No comments:
Post a Comment