Week 3 Term 3 - Teacher Practice: New Literacy CAA Standard - Preparing our students for the new standard (July 31 - August 04)

THE JOURNEY SO FAR

The new curriculum refresh roll out is around the corner. From 2024 the new NCEA Level 1 curriculum will begin and the new set of standards will be released. In 2021, the English Department has started to look at and unpack the new NCEA Level 1 English internal and external standards. We have a fair idea on what each standard is and how we want to integrate that into our existing NCEA Level 1 English program. Since our initial discussion in 2021, we have had productive planning meetings and sessions, unpacking and exploring the curriculum for NCEA Level 1 English. I have reflected this in my earlier blog posts. 

Alby's Blog Entry Post - 30/04/23

Alby's Blog Entry Post - 13/11/22

Alby's Blog Entry Post - 24/08/22

Alby's Blog Entry Post - 16/05/22

I look forward to reflecting and documenting the progress that has been made since our last look at the new curriculum in April. The new curriculum sees a significant change in how many credits that they students need to achieve to gain NCEA Level 1 - with less assessments which means less pressure on students to produce and more of a focus on the learning and creating. In 2024 NCEA 1 changes are as follows: 

• To gain Level 1 you will need 60 credits from a set of new achievement standards
• 10 credit literacy co-requisite
• 10 credit numeracy co-requisite

If a student does not achieve the 10 credits Literacy or Numeracy co-requisite, they cannot pass NCEA Level 1. The 10 credits for Literacy and Numeracy are separate to the 60 credits so students need to pass both the 10 Literacy and Numeracy co-requisite credits and the 60 credits (80 in total). Currently students must pass 80 credits (10 Literacy + 10 Numeracy credits) are inclusive in the total 80 credits. The changes to the new NCEA refresh for Level 1 are big and it does change the course of how we are currently doing things. 

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Literacy Group with Mr Milford Week 2 Term 3

We have started the journey in looking and drafting a plan for the new NCEA Level 1 English refresh. My focus now is on the Literacy CAA Co-Requisite assessment. This year I have decided to do a trial run of the new Literacy CAA Co-Requisite assessment. I have selected 21 students from our current Year 10 Cohort who achieved between high Level 4 to low Level 5 for asTTle Writing (Term 1). It has been suggested in the feedback from the pilot schools that students who are at high Level 4 to low Level 5 for asTTle Writing are encouraged to do the co-requisite assessment. In our current cohort of Year 10, we have 21 students who are at the appropriate level. I have linked in the two assessments that (Unit Standards) the students will be sitting in Term 4. 

• US32403: Read written texts to understand ideas and information (Literacy Reading)
• US32405: Write texts to communicate ideas and information (Literacy Writing)

This term, we have started to prepare the students for the assessment. We meet with the students once a week (hopefully we can meet with them twice a week closer to the assessment date in Term 4). For now, we meet with them on Monday in the afternoon. Mr Marc Milford (literacy expert) and I are working with this group. We are building the unit as we go, but we have an idea on what we want to do over the next 7 weeks in Term 3. 

We have decided to take a thematic approach to the preparation. Instead of just giving our students random reading and writing tasks, we wanted to hone it in and provide a more structured program that focuses on a topic or theme. The theme that we have chosen is Our Community, The Community. The inspiration around this is based on the community facility prompt that the students chose for the asTTle Writing Term 1 program and also there was a community focus in both the reading and writing pilot that took place in 2022 and the beginning of 2023. The topic is broad enough to pull on student's experiences and we can create or gather resources that are readily available to us. 

Reading Focus: 

• Get a range of texts (Continuous + non-continuous) and also pulling exemplars from asTTle to unpack with the students. 
• Vocabulary - look at meaning of words from a text (academic/vocab lists) look at meaning for the words from the sentence, context definition for the word, word attack skills - there is a method of working out the sentence to find out what the word means, find clues within the word to find out the meaning of the word 
• What we need to focus on - Reading Assessment Specifications
• Do reading intensive for x2 weeks focusing on - Who wrote this text? Why did they write this text? Who did they write this for?

Writing Focus: 

• Follow up with a writing task (see writing task below) x2 weeks
• What we need to focus on - Writing Assessment Specifications
• Candidates will be required to produce two pieces of writing in response to stimulus material chosen from a range of options provided by NZQA. The two pieces will be of different text types, and one will be in a formal register. Text types may include (but are not limited to): letters, reports, articles, blog posts, profiles, descriptions, explanations, and opinions.
• Write - linked to themes from the assessment
• Differentiated writing tasks -
• Writing a letter (formal letter)
• Peer review writing

Our plan for Term 3 is: 

• Week 3 - Our Community - Reading (asTTle Letter exemplar 1)
• Week 4 - Our Community - Reading (asTTle Letter exemplar 2)
• Week 5 - Our Community - Writing task (write a letter)
• Week 6 - Our Community - Writing task (write a letter)
• Week 7 - The Community - Reading - ask for P4 Monday for x2 reading periods
• Week 8 - The Community - Writing - ask for P4 Monday for x2 writing periods
• Week 9 - Practice Test
• Week 10 - Feedback to students 

Everything about this learning program is new. I am open to and embracing the journey, a journey I will be learning WITH the students. I am looking forward to seeing how each week goes and in particular I am looking forward to the practice test in Week 9. That will tell me where the students are at and what next steps we need to take going in Term 4 in the last weeks before the actual assessment (slated for November). I also look forward to documenting the journey and sharing it with the English Department. I am hoping that once the trial is done, I can share the unit and the learning with the Department so that they can work through this with their Year 10 and Year 11 cohort next year.