Te Mata School “Seek the Heights”

 In 2008 there were a number of children we believed  that were simply not making sufficient progress.  Was our induction to school moving our children fast enough?  To check our hunch,within the first two weeks of 2009  we tested two out of four Year 1 classes – 39 children to  ascertain their reading and writing levels  The data showed more than half of the 39 students reading  at Magenta /Red level and not able to identify all letters / sounds. This  was well below our assumption. Whilst all our children reached expectation by the end of 40 weeks we could do substantially better!

Literacy Progressions  We used the Literacy progressions to provide the impetus to create the change we needed  We completely revised our expectations around School entry…20 weeks and 40 weeks

 In the past we have withdrawn individual children to work with Teacher Aides with marginal success.  Had a Teacher Aide work in the room alongside children again with marginal success.  Had employed at Teacher to withdraw groups of children ….Again marginal success

 We decided that we needed a super team and organised a skilled Literacy teacher and 3 teacher aides to work in the literacy time with the Classroom Teacher to accelerate the learning of all of our year 0 /1 students. The 2 teachers take the lowest groups and the teacher aides the other groups.  This would lead to increased ownership and sustainability by the classroom teacher.

 Working alongside teachers  Phonics  Monitoring with information rigour  Teacher inquiry  Targeted interventions  SENCO  Leadership release  Resources suited to the programme

 Phonics ( Yolanda Sorrels’ version)  That our children would be through all of the 5 Stages of phonics in the first year  They would know all their letter names and sounds ( Initial,End,medial,chunks )within that time  Phonics would be taught across year 0-3 daily. Tested 2x per year

 Term 1 teacher time covered by accumulated banked staffing surpluses accrued over January holidays  3 teacher aides all morning  4 days per week at approx $16 per hour =  3 T -aides x 4hrs x 4days x 9 wks x$16 =$7000  This money will cater for Literacy acceleration for 145 this year

 2010  12 children were targetted. 10 of the 12 reached the expected Standard at 20 weeks  2011  16 children targetted at the start of the year. 12 of te 16 at the expected Standard at 20 weeks

 Teacher pressure and monitoring  Raising expectations with speed of progress  Focus on Writing/Phonics  Spin offs into reading acceleration  Shared expectations  Targetted funding and resourcing  ALL teachers aware of the progressions  Best use of teacher skill base