Literacy

=// The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. //= =// ...Alvin Toffler (Futurist) //=

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During the April holiday break teachers returned to school for planning and professional development. One of the tasks they undertook was a writing moderation exercise. Moderation involves...

 * ====Each teacher selecting 2 random independent writing samples from their class====
 * ====Providing each of their colleagues with a copy so that all teachers have 12 pieces of writing ranging from children in Y1 - Y8.====
 * ====Teachers independently analysing and leveling each piece of writing and making notes justifying their judgements.====
 * ====Coming back together and comparing and contrasting our assessment of each piece of writing.====

====We do this to ensure that there is consistency in the ways that our children's writing is assessed and to ensure that we are correct in our reasoning for our judgements. It was a challenging and interesting exercise and fortunately there was little variation in our judgements. Where there was variations in leveling there was robust discussion about the writing sample and in some cases some shifts in thinking.====

====One of the major implications from this exercise was the need to align the assessment criteria we had been using to the new National Standards. This took quite some time however it was well worthwhile as a support booklet was developed for teachers to refer to we assessing writing. The link below is to our new re-aligned writing expectations, please note in the expectations the number indicates the curriculum level and the B, D, C indicates Beginning, Developing or Consolidated... so... 3D = Level 3 Developing.====

====Term 2 reports will clearly show where each child is expected to achieve, where they actually achieve and whether they are at expectation, above, well above, below or well below. There will also be suggestions as to how children can be best supported at home. Any questions or queries please contact your child's teacher or the Principal.====

[|2010 Writing Expectations.doc]
media type="custom" key="4408167" ==Writing scripts and preparing story-boards were two of the literacy focus areas leading up to the 2009 Nati Awards. Below is a link to the script for the short film entry that was a finalist this year.== [|Script - Poroumata.pdf]