In 2013 as acting Principal of Waimarama School one of my roles as lead learner was to lead my staff into inquiry for accelerated learning outcomes for our students. Having attended the first time principals conference and listening to the Principal of Sylvia Park speak about this model and line of inquiry, it resonated with me about engaging all stakeholders to support the needs of students. My staff and I implemeneted this, in our own way to suit our context, and it was effective in terms of building community buy-in, accelerating learning for some of the target students, and having inquiry and teaching and learning drive what we did as practitioners. Some of the most useful tools that were developed in this time are still at play in my current classroom.
Background behind it:
Mutukaroa is underpinned by the findings of the Best Evidence Synthesis The Complexity of Community and Family Influences in Children’s Achievement in New Zealand. These findings identify which practices have a positive impact in improving learner outcomes.
Mutukaroa builds on research that shows that:
- educationally powerful partnerships change what happens in classrooms
- deliberately nurtured school–whānau relationships help learners achieve success
- ongoing cycles of inquiry, focused on building partnerships, promote student learning in and outside of school.
Mutukaroa sets out to explore and implement a personalised approach that would develop honest, robust, and rigorous relationships with parents and whānau. The principle intentions of Mutukaroa are to grow relationships based on trust, build understanding, invite a two-way knowledge exchange, and encourage parents and whānau to participate actively in their child’s learning.
The investment objectives for participating schools include:
- accelerated learning progress and achievement for new entrants
- whānau and learners are well informed and equipped to contribute to accelerated learning outcomes for new entrants
- parents and whānau are engaged in the achievement data of their children
- parents and whānau become more influential in their children’s learning
- teachers are more confident and capable to more effectively relate to and interact with diverse families.
What data is used to inform decisions?
- National Standards/Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori results
- Public Achievement Information (PAI)
- Regional and local information (decile, roll, ethnicity, leadership)
- School charters (produced annually)
- Annual reports and Analysis of variance
- Education Review Office Report(s)
How we set out to deliver it in our own context:
1) Make a meeting
Informally approach and discuss what we we intend to do in terms of creating learning goals and shared understanding of next steps for learning for reading. Offer options and times to meet as well as different venues- accommodating whanau needs.
Te Amohanga
2) At the meeting
When discussing the data- highlight and discuss the key findings of each piece of data (triangulate with evidence) and create a shared understanding of where the next steps are (in simple terms to create meaningful conversation).
Key Question
How can we support the learning at home and at school to ensure the goals are met? (Action plan)
Bring along teaching as inquiry for each student.
At the end clarify and check for what the understanding of the goal is.-recap
Goals are agreed upon and recorded on goal sheet at the time of/ evidence process explained-model demonstrated
Specific as!- Nitty gritty
3) After the meeting
-Learning goals dictate everything that is done in reading at school.
Homework for that child only supports that goal/ homework reflecting exactly what is done in class.
-Evidence is constantly sourced and negotiated with the student- keeping the main thing the main thing
4) During the process
Work teaching as inquiry- developing skills in- reflective tools, student voice, and collaborate for learning strategies, tools and activities.
Constantly looking for high impact, engaging, best practice activities. (Based on professional research)
Time Frame
- Met and set goals (step 1/2) by the end of the week.
Next weeks homework to reflect the learning goals
After stage 2 chat about the meetings- what worked what didnt
2 weeks time chat to parents/whanau if not before
Constantly-reflect on teaching as Inquiry/ look at best practice (staff meetings driven)
Target Students for the Inquiry (2 classes yr 1-6):
Angus
Started at level 18. Now at level 24 94.9% accuracy.
Needs to be reading Part 2 Journals.
Lifted his letter and word sounding out from 7.11 yrs - to 9.05-9.11yrs (BURT)
Still developing self monitoring and vowel sounds/double vowel sounds, prefixes and suffixes
Aim to be at level 25/26 for the national standards
Cayden
Started at Level 14. Now on level 15 92%. Needs to be at Part 2 Journals
Burt sight word test went from 6.08 yrs to 7.11-8.05 yrs.
Beginning to independently sound out words.
Focussing on digraphs, moving into blends and long and short vowel sounds.
Still need to test.
Level 23/24 for the national standards
Tiwai
Started at Level 9-now at level 14 - up five levels. He is aiming to be at least level 20.
RTLB put us onto reading mileage programme with teacher aid e to develop his confidence.
General reading mileage is needed for Tiwai.
Self confidence and enjoyment of reading is improving.
He has been focusing on Digraphs and now is learning long and short vowel sounds.
His self correcting has increased almost 90%.
Level 22 for national standards
Was level 3 and instructional 4, is now level 7 so has moved 4 levels since the inquiry began.
Still aiming to be at level 14-16 by the end of the year.
Still has 2 early words to go.
Has now learned all the diagraphs, is now onto blends- short vowels and long vowel sounds to follow.
4 letters from alphabet sounds- has got those now.
Bringing his letter knowledge into his knowledge- more independent and confident writer.
Aim for level 17
Merena
Started at level and is now level 5, is aiming to be at level 9-14 by the end of the year.
Sounding out a word using the first letter sound- which was her goal.
Has learned 7 more early words.
Is re-reading for meaning-positive strategy.
Aim for level 14
Wiki
Was level 12, and is now 16 and is at the national standards.
Vowel sound goal learned which was a major gap.
Focused on reading her own writing-teacher
Next step is to ensure she is is self-monitoring before graduating out of the inquiry.
Level 18 for the national standards
Zanoriko
Was level 2, now level 3. Needs to be level 14 by the end of the year.
Has missed many days which is impacting his progress.
One to one matching- observational
Early words- has got 3 more since early June
15 more letters-sound out 7 more- testing soon.
Letter sound knowledge to be worked on.
Will put him onto reading mileage program with teacher aide.
Goal-sound out using first letter sound.
Aim for level 14
Zeppelin
6 years old
Level 1
2 Early words
Alphabet sound
Recommending to RTLB
Aim for level 3
Elijah
Level 3 (RTLB aim level 5) should be at level 18 by end of the year
Has been on RTLB roll/ IEP recently came off funding
24 early words with 11 to be learned
Low retention
Oral language gaps makes comprehension difficult.
12 letter recognition/sounds to be learned
Aim for level 5
Shiloh Mackie
- L 2/3 needs to be at 8
-Year 1
-Alphabet testing and another running record
-Early word exposure needs to be lifted
-phonic knowledge- letter id/sound
Aim for level 8
Billy Bell
-L 2/3 needs to be at 8
-Year 1
-Alphabet testing and another running record
-Early word exposure needs to be lifted
-phonic knowledge- letter id/sound
Level 8 for the national standards
Wiki Gillies
-Year 4
-Level 24 needs to be level 26
-phonic knowledge gaps
-Not attending to the whole word letter sound
-Fluency and expression need to be worked on.
Level 26 for the national standards.
Examples of change of practice through inquiry:
Cayden, Angus, Chapera and Wiki- neglecting syntactic cues (structure)
Activities to help this
Reference- Chris Brough- University of Waikato Lecturer
- close reading worksheets- options and then no options.
- Oral close-teacher reading out sentences with missing words- child contributes the word
- Leave it out- cover up the last word and read, then read again uncovered-experiment with covering different words in a sentence.
- Role reversal- students make up sentences that have structural errors for a buddy to fix up.
Action-this week
-each day do one of the activities with each of the students and look for student feedback about how it helped them read. x4
-create the posters and have them displayed and explicitly taught throughout the week.
-needs to be our school wide model for graphaphonic cues.
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