Reservoir Primary School Literacy Share Day “We are all responsible”

School Context Our school community is characterized by our school values of acceptance,respect, responsibility and personal excellence. Our students come from diverse cultural backgrounds. We have approximately 210 students. Our school has always had a strong focus on developing Literacy and Numeracy skills for all students, as well as the capacity to become successful, independent, reflective learners.

School Context Our school has a collaborative approach involving staff, students, parents and the wider school community. Together we are all committed to a culture of continual improvement and achievement.

Professional Development with John Munro was our starting point. High Reliability Literacy Teaching Procedures were introduced. The two Learning Leaders attended these sessions. Followed up with whole staff at weekly curriculum meetings.

Moving forward Learning Leaders demonstrated the Reading Comprehension strategies. Introduced collegiate visits which provided opportunities for staff to observe the strategies being used. Area meeting structure changed to include student learning. Discussions focused on feedback from collegiate visits and HRLTP strategies being used.

Detour Implementation of HRLTP strategies was well underway. Teachers indicated support was needed for the more explicit teaching of writing. Writing was also targeted as an area for improvement in our Annual Implementation Plan. John Munro was employed for a whole staff Curriculum Day to provide Professional Development in writing & to link the HRLTP strategies to our writing.

Curriculum focused directly on what had been delivered to Learning Leaders at the AiZ PD. Compiling resources that support staff to use the strategies being implemented. Visual aides for students to help them learn to explicitly follow procedures, for example reciprocal reading stages & summarising steps. Further PD with Lorraine Edwards & John Munro to consolidate understanding of strategies.

Learning Leaders developed a Literacy implementation plan which was referred to at student learning meetings. This enabled staff to know what strategies they should be implementing and provided a forum for teachers to discuss what they were doing and learn from each other. The implementation plan outlined what each of the strategies looked like in each area of the school, what the teachers would be doing, and what the students would be doing. In addition to these aspects that Connie spoke about, some other key actions that helped to successfully implement the key literacy strategies were that the Learnng Leaders developed a literacy implementation plan. This plan outlined each of the strategies and what it looked like at the time in the different areas of the school. It explained what the teachers would be doing for each of the strategies as well as what the students would be doing. This helped us to know what stage each of the strategies was at and what sort of things the students should be saying, making and doing for each of the strategies.

Staying on Track Learning Leaders have attended Professional Development with Lorraine Edwards. This complemented the HRLTP work, and added valuable strategies towards improving reading comprehension. The strategies we focused on with our staff were: Teaching inference Reading fluency Reciprocal reading Writing moderation- folders were compiled for each staff member with the relevant writing samples. Helping our school to stay on track was the Professional Development sessions presented by Lorraine Edwards that Connie and l attended. These sessions made a valuable repertoire of key comprehension strategies that are being used towards improving reading comprehension. Some of the strategies we focused on particularly from these sessions were teaching inference, reading fluency and reciprocal reading. In terms of the writing moderation samples we received at Lorraine’s sessions, at our school we decided to create folders for each staff member that contained the relevant writing samples for their VELS teaching areas. The folders also contained samples of writing below and above each of the areas VELS levels to accommodate for those students working below and above expected VELS levels. And we use these folders readily in our professional conversations about students writing.

Staying on Track Strategies were embraced by staff and found to be valuable in improving reading comprehension. To support the PD by Learning Leaders and for accountability, these strategies became the focus for collegiate visits. Through these visits Learning Leaders were able to identify if further support or PD was needed. As Learning Leaders and class room teachers ourselves, Connie and l could see that the literacy strategies were being adopted by teachers and being seen as valuable towards improving reading comprehension. Some of these strategies, such as reciprocal reading and summarising became the focus for our collegiate visits. This provided some accountability that we were practising these strategies in our classrooms as well as allowing us to identify any areas that teachers wanted further support or PD for.

Cruise control The Key reading comprehension strategies are now well established at our school. All teachers are using them regularly in their day to day planning documents and in their classroom practise. As the heading suggests, we feel that at this particular stage we are in ‘cruise control’ mode where the key comprehension strategies are well established in our classrooms and we are using them regularly and confidently in our planning documents and classroom practise.

PLT Meetings Student learning meetings have been replaced with Professional Learning Teams. The focus remains on student learning. Students learning goals are being monitored based on evidence collected. Strategies are being discussed and ideas shared. Teachers are now more confident in using the key comprehension strategies. Teachers work in teams to collectively take on the responsibility for improving student outcomes. Data collected to date is showing an improvement in reading comprehension. Our existing student learning meetings have been replaced with the Professional Learning Team meetings, where the focus remains on student learning. These PLT meetings are a structure in place where our student learning goals are being monitored based on evidence collected. All teachers were provided with a resource folder that contained all their rocket and classroom reports together with the learning stages. The folders also contained the relevant proformas for recording common low, middle and high students. The PLT’s are a forum were strategies are discussed and ideas shared. Overall, we can feel positive in knowing that teachers are using the key comprehension strategies with more confidence and we have established a culture of teachers working together in teams to collectively take on the responsibility for improving student outcomes. And it is obviously both pleasing and encouraging to see that the various forms of data being collected is showing an improvement in reading comprehension.

A whole school Literacy plan is currently being developed in line with AiZ recommendations as well as common planning documents. Next year, we will be working on developing our whole school Numeracy plan that will align with our Literacy planning documents. PLT meetings will provide a forum enabling us to continue to focus on literacy strategies, providing sustainability for the strategies learnt. Collegiate visits will continue to provide opportunities for staff to reflect on teaching practises and learn from one another. It is an expectation that Teacher Performance Plans will continue to include the AiZ initiatives. And now we have begun thinking about where will we be moving onto next. As a result a whole school literacy plan is currently being developed in line with the AiZ recommendations. We are also looking at our exisiting term and weekly planning documents to establish common planning documents. PLT meetings will continue to provide a forum for student learning discussions as well as the continuation of collegiate visits which will provide us with opportunities to reflect on our teaching practises and learn from one another. And finally, it is an expectation that Teacher Performance Plans continue to include and demonstrate the AiZ initiatives.

Reflection Reservoir & the AiZ Being involved in the AiZ has provided our school with a platform to improve our teaching practices. It has added to our existing knowledge, and refined things we were already doing. Student progress is being monitored carefully through new and existing assessment procedures and we are seeing an improvement in student learning. For quite a while Connie and l would go back to our school and during curriculum meetings talk about David Hopkins and John Munro, Peter Sullivan, Ramond Lewis just to name a few and noone really knew who these people were. So one day Connie and l thought we would put a picture to these names and so the AiZ notice board was created and has a place in our staffroom. And so finally when we reflect on our partnership with the AiZ to date, we can say that it has provided our school with a platform from which we have been able to continue to improve teacher practice by adding to our existing knowledge and skills. And it has refreshed our vision of how student progress is being monitored through new and existing assessment procedures. And above all else we are able to see an improvement in student learning. We would like to finish up with some final words and images of our students.