Dr Sarah Aiono has a conversation with Leslee Allen, teaching principal of Kaurihohore School (Whangarei), and creator of Number Agents.
Leslee is a passionate advocate of developmentally responsive teaching, including the value of both explicit instruction and child-led learning through play. The conversation also discusses some misconceptions around school reporting, MoE requirements and systemic responsibilities schools have.
Takeaways from the podcast
- The school has no reporting to Board for Years 1-3. No benchmarks as markers for where they should be for Year 1-3. No recording of data anywhere except for the target students.
- The school believes it is utterly unfair to use benchmarks for students in these early years because each child's developmental progress is so different. For example, girls develop cognitively earlier than boys, yet boys develop movement skills earlier than girls. Do we measure girls movement skills and then call them below if they have not developed their movement skills yet? If a child is cognitively at two years, why compare them to a five-year-old benchmark?
- Since the changes, teachers are now asking how cognitively developed the students were when they started school.
- Benchmarks are false as not a marker to progress and do not consider the variability of factors that could impact a child's development.
- A teacher who understands the child well will know when they are ready for the next part of their learning journey and show us they are prepared for the next step. For example, children will start to ask how to spell words when they are ready.
- Still share a lot with parents about their learning, especially why they are doing something. For example, they are learning to hop because it supports their balance and strength development.
- Reporting to the Board is done by curriculum levels from Year 4-6. There is no mandate from the MOE or ERO, reporting to Boards on which learners are above, below etc. The only things needing reporting are how schools are doing on their goals at the start of the year.
- The MOE policy states that schools have autonomy, meaning we can create our curriculum and make our own decisions around assessment and reporting.
- The school utilises data to unlock student and teacher needs and the new learning as part of an inquiry by teachers and leaders. Data is helpful from Year 4-8 as it is helpful to see patterns in cohorts, e.g. gender, years, ethnicity etc. The annual report is written for the leadership team in the school, not the Ministry of Education.
- The Principal reports on the targets set in the annual targets around well-being, writes a narrative for the MOE about well-being, how they have developed trauma-informed practice, and what processes and procedures are in place to support well-being. The targets help ensure we make sure the children are happy and doing well.
- The National Education Learning Priorities (NELP's) are excellent and will drive the school's targets into the future.
- The MOE wants assessments that are useful and dynamic and paint a good picture of the child. MOE wants our children to be happy and ensure they are doing well.
- Robust systems are in place to identify and track target students throughout their school years.
Thoughts and More Questions than Answers
What does success look like at Years 1-3, so we know play-based learning, structured literacy and individual interventions meet our learners' needs? Do we need to know?
How do we measure success, engagement and well-being through the school?
Why should we not just trust
- The students will be getting all they need in the first three years at school based on the developmentally appropriate practice in the community.
- The teachers know their learners and are inquiring into their practice as part of a professional growth cycle, ensuring meeting the needs of their learners.
- Our assessment for learning is utilising the most appropriate information?
Where does Hero fit? Do we
- Use Hero in place of multiple Google files or link these in Hero to the students?
- Student feed for communicating with student and caregiver.
- Using tracking flags to keep target students at the front of mind.
- ensure goals are shared with students and caregivers so that there is a partnership for the students learning.
- ensure our Hero Milestones/Expectations fit our expectations for Year 1-3 if we follow Kaurihohore School lead?
How does assessment at Year 4-8 look?
- Are the assessments functional for teachers and leaders and designed to improve both teaching and learning?
- Are the assessments dynamic, mana enhancing for the learner and teacher and paint a good picture of the child?
- Is the assessment a partnership between the learner and teacher
