Week 6 Term 3: Teacher Practice: Literacy and Numeracy CAA Update + Next Steps (August 26 - August 30)

CONTEXT

Year 11 group Literacy CAA September intake 2024

Literacy is a hot topic across the country especially within the Education sector. The new numeracy and literacy co-requisites have been put into play this year. As explained by Number Works N Word, 

"Achieving an NCEA co-requisite in Literacy and Numeracy involves passing two literacy standards and one numeracy standard, which are the following:

US32403: Read written texts to understand ideas and information
Students credited with this unit standard are able to read to make sense of written texts, read with critical awareness, and read for different purposes.
US32405: Write texts to communicate ideas and information
US32406: Use mathematics and statistics to meet the numeracy"

2023 LITERACY CAA JOURNEY + RESULTS

In 2023 we trialed a select group of Year 10 students who are at Level 5+ of the curriculum level for PAT reading to sit the literacy co-requisite assessment (32403 and 32405). I documented the journey here and how it the process went for myself and the students - see Alby's Blog Post Entry - 30/07/23. A select group of 18 students from Year 10 (2023) who sit in within the stanine 5 range (PAT Reading) took part in the new Literacy Co-Requisite Standard (10 Credits). We met every Monday in Term 3 during period 5 to prepare for the assessment in Term 4. 

Literacy (Writing) 32403 (Assessment November Term 4 2023)

• 11 out of 18 students passed the Reading Assessment (32403)

Literacy (Writing) 32403 (Assessment November Term 4 2023)

• 8 out of 18 students passed the Writing Assessment (32405)

2024 LITERACY / NUMERACY CAA JOURNEY + RESULTS

Literacy intensive Thursday August 22

This year we had the opportunity to offer the literacy and numeracy co-requisite. The Level Up Literacy and Numeracy Team which consists of myself (HoLA English), Mrs Singh (HoLA Mathematics), Ms Apelu (HoLA Social Sciences), Mr Malholtra (HoLA Science), Mrs Suipi Latu (HoLA ESOL) and our Deputy Principal Ms Moore - decided to focus on our Year 11 students who do not have literacy or numeracy to take the assessment in May (Term 2). For both literacy and numeracy we had around 35 - 40 students enrolled for the test. We held intensive literacy and numeracy sessions which were held in the auditorium during the double periods for Math and English. Mrs Singh and I lead these sessions with the support of our teacher aides. We used the 2023 test paper as the guide for our teaching and taught to the assessment. Here are the results from the assessment taken in May (Term 2): 

Numeracy (Assessment May Term 2 2024)

• No. of students who sat the assessment: 17
• No. of students who passed the assessment: 24%

Literacy (Writing) 32403 (Assessment May Term 2 2024)

• No. of students who sat the assessment: 37
• No. of students who passed the assessment: 14%

Literacy (Reading) 32405 (Assessment May Term 2 2024)

• No. of students who sat the assessment: 41
• No. of students who passed the assessment: 22%

FINDINGS FROM THE TEST

Literacy intensive Thursday August 2024

The results tell us that there is so much  more work to do. Many of our students who sat the assessment in May did not achieve their literacy in our Level Up program last year for various reasons including low attendance, disengagement and we had many students in our May intake who were new to the school or part of EL cohort (English as a second language). The story behind the results and the reality that we are facing is that we need to focus on our literacy specifics as a whole school and drive it together. The three literacy specifics that we want to focus on and what we have learnt from the results from the assessment in May are: 

Locate and find information

Describe what, who, why, when and where

Identify the main idea/Summarize information

NEXT STEPS

Meeting with Year 11 Literacy/Numeracy CAA September Group 

Our next steps is that we are going to offer the assessment again to our Year 11 students who did not achieve the Literacy/Numeracy CAA in May as well as our Year 10 students who are at Level 5+ of the curriculum. Collectively this group is around 45-50+ students. Our aim is try and get them both the literacy and numeracy CAA successfully. We will: 

• Hold an intensive class with our Year 11 students for a whole day to get them practicing again with the past Lit and Num papers. 
• We will be getting our Year 10 English and Math teachers to use their class time to go through the past Lit and Num papers with their students - in an effort to empower our kaiako to drive effective teaching of literacy in their classrooms.