Baseline data

Begin to collect evidence and data and come to the next session ready to share your preliminary findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge i.e. using your baseline student data and evidence

For the overall challenge facing our cluster, see my previous blog post.

9PKr average PAT reading comprehension score from the start of the year is 3.55. 

No students scored below 2, which is ridiculous because one student in this class does not speak or read English and is below a Level 1 in e-asTTle. The top reading student in the class was absent and no score was recorded for her. 

The average pre-test score in Read Theory for the class was 1.77. 

Motivation for reading questionnaire results are published below: 

My baseline self-reflection checklist is also attached below:

Tools and measures for my inquiry

Describe the tools/measures/approaches you plan to use to get a more detailed and accurate profile of students’ learning in relation to that challenge. 

Literature review:
Google scholar

Current data:
Y8 and Y9 PAT reading comprehension, writing and maths scores

Current practice:
Student interviews, teacher interviews, random sampling of Y8 timetables and activities online

Forming interventions:
Synthesised findings from literature review and current practice to identify opportunity for change and improved teacher practice.

Case study 1:
Motivations for reading questionnaire - pre and post test around intervention

Case study 2:
Read Theory pre-test and post scores

Case study 3:
Teacher self-reflection checklist pre and post Case study 3. 
Read Theory pre-test compared to post-Case-study-2 as well as 
Read Theory pre test compared to post (both) Case studies 2 and 3. 
Comparison between shift caused by Case study 2 and 3. 

Additional pre/post test data for Case study 2 & 3:
PAT Term 1 score and PAT Term 4 score 2019

Holiday Drop-Off in The 31?

We often hear about 'summer holiday drop-off' in our student's results and hypothesise about what that means, what causes it and how we can overcome it. 

However! My data analysis has revealed some great news! 

For the 31 year 9 Tamaki College students who accelerated in their reading comprehension last year, this wasn't a phenomenon. They made progress in their holidays at the same rate as the rest of NZ. It just wasn't as much as they made during their school year, which is encouraging because that means teachers and schools can help and DO have an impact on the students in their classes! :)

Interestingly, 'summer holiday drop-off' is also not a phenomenon in the averaged reading comprehension results of ANY Year 9 Manaiakalani years who arrived at Tamaki College in the last three years; as you can see, the trend continues upwards from the last Year 8 result to the first Year 9 result. 

Why might that be? Maybe students are nervous or excited about starting secondary and do some online research or reading over their break! Some might participate in the summer holiday learning journey, but the spread of participants probably include primary students too. The drop-off can't be a function of testing in Primary schools, (that students perhaps aren't prepared for their Term 1 test but do a lot of practice or pre-testing in class before the Term 4 one) because this would show again from Y8 to Y9 as in Y9 students receive little preparation and just head in to sit the test under standard test conditions. In summary - I don't really have a strong hypothesis for why there's drop-off between primary years but not between primary and secondary! 

If we look at the top graph again, the reason why my inquiry is important is revealed: 

Individually, each of the 31 accelerated in reading up towards the national mean during their school year. This is shown as an average in the graph above. Then, they have tracked along with the rest of NZ over the holidays to reach their Year 9 score, and didn't drift further away from the mean. This holiday improvement is an average again, as 22 improved on their final Y8 score but 9 dropped.

The challenge here is "can I find out what caused this Year 8 acceleration?" Because wouldn't it be awesome if they made the same amount of progress in Year 9 and crossed that national mean line!  AND wouldn't it be amazing if whole classes and year groups could manage this, and the Manaiakalani cluster became as good at improving reading as we are at improving writing.

I don't teach all of the 31 - in fact, I only teach 3 of them. So it's important that I create and share something from the findings of my inquiry, so teachers across the cluster can have a go too!

CoL Blog 4

My wrist is still sore so more handwriting!
I didn't crop this because I thought it was quite artistic!

CoL Blog 3

CoL Blogs 1 and 2

I injured my wrist over the holidays and typing irritates it so here's my handwritten blog post:

Identify Trends - Maori Student Achievement Data

In my last post I learned that overall performance in the senior sciences are mostly on par with Decile 1 and at times closer to National norms. This data included internals AND externals, and students of all ethnicities. 

Today I'm going to delve deeper and look at Maori student achievement data in science, as my inquiry title is: 

Can changes to cultural visibility and responsiveness in the junior science program improve Maori student a) reading achievement and b) enjoyment, confidence and achievement in science?

Before we jump in, I think it's really quite important to note that the number of Maori students who take senior science is not high. It's difficult to talk about trends in data when there are only one or two students involved, as their individual differences may be massive!  

For example there were 2 Maori students in Biology in 2015, 1 in 2016 and 1 in 2017. There was only 1 Maori student enrolled in Y12 Chemistry in 2017 and no Maori students enrolled in Y13 Chemistry. 

The fact that not many Maori students choose senior science is an area that I hope to improve by inquiring into the cultural visibility and responsiveness of the junior curriculum to the lives and cultures of our Maori akonga.

These %'s represent the total % of grades across the year in both internal and externals. For example in the Year 12 2015 Chem Maori results there were 5 standards sat by the lone Maori student, and they received NA for 1, A for 1 and E for 3 of them. 

So let's jump in!

Year 12 Chem Maori Results

2015 Maori results - 20% NA, 20% A, 0 M, 60% E.

2016 Maori results - 57% NA, 0 A, 0 M and 43% E.

2017 Maori results - 100% NA.

National Statistics Decile 1 - 37% NA, 37% A, 13% M, 13% E.

Year 13 Chemistry Maori Results

2015 Maori results - 46% NA, 18% A, 9% M, 27% E.

2016 Maori results - 75% NA, 25% A, 0 M, 0 E.

2017 Maori results - no Maori students enrolled.

National Statistics Decile 1 - 31% NA, 40% A, 11% M, 12% E.

Year 12 Physics Maori Results

2016 Maori - 67% NA, 0 A, 33% M, 0 E.

2017 Maori - 64% NA, 21% A, 14% M, 0 E.

National Statistics Decile 1 - 32% NA, 45% A, 21% M, 3% E.

Year 13 Physics Maori Results

2016 Maori results - 0 NA, 0 A, 100% M, 0 E.

2017 Maori results - 0 NA, 75% A, 0 M, 25% E.

National Statistics Decile 1 - 43% NA, 33% A, 12% M, 12% E

Year 12 Biology Maori Results

2015 Maori results - 0 NA, 43% A, 57% M, 0 E.

2016 Maori results - 46% NA, 46% A, 7% M, 0 E.

2017 Maori results - 33% NA, 50% A, 17% M, 0 E.

National Statistics Decile 1 - 39% NA, 42% A, 11% M, 9% E.

Year 13 Biology Maori Results

2015 Maori results - 80% NA, 20% A, 0 M, 0 E.

2016 Maori results - 0 NA, 0 A, 100% M, 0 E.

2017 Maori results - 75% NA, 0 A, 25% M, 0 E.

National Statistics Decile 1 - 42% NA, 35% A, 15% M, 8% E.

Some things that have just jumped out at me is that in three Years no Maori student has gained an E in senior Biology, (Y12 or 13), although the rest of the Y12 grade distributions are similar to that of other Decile 1 schools.  

Maori students seem to perform better in senior Chemistry compared to Physics and Biology. 

Again, it is difficult to say this data is conclusive when the stats are based on 1, 2 or occasionally 3 students per year.

Interestingly, this article was posted over the weekend and shows that Nationally, 80% of students pass 'Science' (across all 3 levels, I guess?) and that about 19% will pass with Excellence.

Identify Trends - Student Achievement Data

What is achievement like across all senior sciences - we have staff reporting that students are not as prepared as they could be when they arrive, but what is the data telling us? I compared all Achievement Standard data from 2015, 2016 and 2017 with the 2016 National results (across all decile schools) and also with the 2016 National Decile 1 results. 

Results seem to indicate that while teachers feel some of our students are less prepared than they could be and that we need to "catch them up" on previous years' learning sometimes, their performances are by-and-large on par with the rest of the country.

These overall results could hide standards that students are find much harder and perform worse in, by mixing the data with standards they found easier and performed better in. This data also reports on internal and exam performance together.

Year 12 Biology Results

Year 12 results across 2015, 2016 and 2017 follow a similar proportion of grades to both 2016
National Statistics and Decile 1 Statistics too, although slightly less Excellences and more of
other grades.

Year 13 Biology Results

2015 results are similar to the National Statistics in Decile 1.

2016 results are similar to the 2016 National Statistics across all deciles.

2017 results shows a large increase in Excellence (almost 50% of all grades).

Year 12 Chemistry Results

Results in 2015 and 2017 are very similar.

2016 saw a small increase in NA and E and a decrease in A and M.

All three years have a higher proportion of NA than 2016 National Statistics and Decile 1 Statistics.

Year 13 Chemistry Results

2015 and 2016 show similar proportions of NA and A grades, with a few more E’s in 2015 than
in 2016.

2017 results show a lot less NA compared to 2016 National Statistics and also Decile 1 schools. There was also a
decrease in E and therefore a large increase in Achieved and Merit grades.

Year 12 Physics Results

2016 has a similar pattern of results to other Decile 1 National Statistics.

2016 and 2017 results both have more NA and less E than the overall 2016 National Statistics.

Compared to 2016, 2017 saw a slight increase in NA and a small decrease in A, while the M
and E remained fairly similar.

Year 13 Physics Results

2016 and 2017 Not Achieved results sit squarely between Decile 1 National Statistics and the
overall National Statistics.

2016 had a greater proportion of M and E than the 2016 National Statistics, and much less
Achieved.

2017 had a very similar proportion of M and E to the 2016 National Statistics.

TLDR: There doesn't seem to be a clear trend across time or the three subjects. Most results are on par with 2016 Decile 1 results, and some appear more like 2016 average nationwide results from all deciles. Results vary by year.