Week 5 Term 4 - Staff PLD - Literacy Slam Session (November 6 - November 10)

As we prepare for the new NCEA Level 1 curriculum refresh we are also making sure that we understand the new literacy and numeracy co-requisites. I wrote a reflection on this in Term 3 and the journey that we have taken in trialing the new literacy standard with a select group of Year 10 students. Please see the entry below.  

 Alby's Entry Blog Post - 30/07/23

Since this post, the select group of students have met every Monday focusing on the literacy skill set (which I will go through in the post) and we have also had a go at the literacy assessment from the September 2022 and June 2023 pilot. It has been a good time to go through the assessment with the students and to get familiar with the skill set that is needed in order to get through the assessment. 

At our most recent PLD session, the HOLA of Mathematics and myself (HOLA English) introduced the new Numeracy and Literacy standards to our colleagues. The purpose of our presentation was to bring all the learning areas together and to show them what they can do in their learning area to support the new numeracy and literacy requirements. Traditionally, numeracy and literacy has fallen into the Mathematics and English spaces. The new curriculum refresh encourages all learning areas that they have a meaningful role to play in the numeracy and literacy teaching and learning for all students. In this reflection I will outline how the PLD session went and what we covered. 

WHAKATAUKI

Literacy and Numeracy whakatauki

We opened with the whakatauki for both literacy (English) and numeracy (Mathematics). The whakatauki is important as it gives the heart, the essence and the vision behind the kaupapa. The whakatauki for both literacy and numeracy encourages both teachers and students to embrace 'language' in all of its beauty and form and to also focus on key learning and concepts. 

KEY SKILLS IN NUMERACY AND LITERACY

Effective practices to support literacy in numeracy

Literacy skill breakdown

Focusing on the key numeracy and literacy skills helped to highlight what the key learning is for our students. The numeracy co-requisite assessment is heavily assessed through literacy (the readings and questions) have a strong literacy component. The literacy co-requisite of course has a very strong literacy element to it. It is clear from both assessments that the students need to have a strong skill set in order to achieve both assessments. We went through the skill set for both numeracy and literacy and we made it clear that the skillset highlighted from the pilot are skill sets that we are already doing in our learning area. Our job is to make sure that we are doing it well in their respective learning area so that it supports the literacy and numeracy intensives that are covered in Mathematics and English. 

GIVING THE ASSESSMENT A GO!

Tamaki College staff giving the numeracy + literacy assessment a go

Once we went through the skill breakdown, we gave everyone an opportunity to give the assessment (for both numeracy and literacy) a go. In their respective learning areas, we spent 30 minutes working on ONE question from the numeracy and literacy assessment. They really enjoyed this part of the presentation and it was a good experience for us as teachers to see what our students will be assessed on regarding literacy and numeracy in the new curriculum refresh. It was evident from the feedback that the staff knew that the both assessments are literacy heavy. 

REFLECTION

Staff feedback/reflection

We closed the session with some reflection questions for each learning area to reflect on. We asked the learning areas the following questions. 

1. Which of the skills are you currently using in your learning area that support your akonga with their numeracy and literacy?
2. What can you do to support your current numeracy and literacy practice in your learning area?
3. What are some other skills that you can integrate into your learning area?

We wanted the learning areas to feel empowered about what they are doing already when it comes to effective literacy practice. We know that there is effective literacy practice going, it is just a matter of honing in on it and doing it well. We also wanted our colleagues to look at the literacy skills needed for both numeracy and literacy and prioritize them in their planning for 2024 (specifically for their Year 9 and Year 10 English programs). We are excited to continue working with our colleagues next year and for them to share their effective literacy practice.