COL - School Leaders Discussion

I initially decided to focus on tracking only one reading group for my COL inquiry. There are eight students in this group who are all reading at 9 years old. However, after some discussion with our Acting Principal Toni Nua regarding the recent Reading PAT and STAR test results, I will now focus on two of my reading groups. The second group are reading between 8 and 8.5 years old.

In total, there will be 16 students in my target group for my inquiry. This will allow for a larger sample size for my inquiry and hopefully better data collection. The discussion with Toni Nua was very valuable as she has a great wealth of knowledge and experience around teaching Year 7 & 8 students (She was the Intermediate School Team Leader years ago) as well as expertise in the literacy curriculum.

The next step will be to analyse the data from the PAT Reading and STAR test to identify where the student strengths and weaknesses are.

COL Data: PAT Reading and STAR Results Term 1 2024

PAT and STAR results: 

I used a table to track the PAT Reading and STAR data for 16 students who are in my potential target group for my COL inquiry this year. I initially thought about just tracking one reading group (around 8 students) but after discussion with Toni Nua (Deputy Principal) I will be tracking 2 reading groups who are reading at a similar age. 

Some Key findings: 

* The results from the 8-8.5 readers were quite similar to the 9 year readers. 

* PAT Reading range: Stanine 1 - 4

* STAR range: Stanine 1 - 3

* Word Recognition in the STAR test was a strength compared to the other sections. 

* Student weakness in STAR was: Vocab, Advertising language and Writing Style.

COL (Community of Learning) 2024

COL Inquiry 2024

Welcome to my professional inquiry blog! This year I have the privilege of being a member of the Manaiakalani COL (Community of Learning) for 2024. Last week we had our first COL meeting for the year. It was an opportunity to meet all the other COL teachers in our cluster as well as the across-school COL leaders. When we were interviewed towards the end of 2023 for COL we were asked what our inquiry focus might be. We needed to relate it back to one of the 6 main goals of Manaiakalani as follows:



This year I have decided to select achievement challenge 3 which is to:

'Lift the achievement in Reading for all students, with a particular focus on boys and Māori students (both genders) years 1-13'

I have selected reading as my area of inquiry because most of the students in my literacy class of Year 7 & 8 students are reading below their age. I have 30 students in my literacy class. Their reading ages range from 5 years old (ESOL student) to 11 years old, so there is quite a range. The first part of our inquiry involves gathering data. This will enable us to form hunches around what the real issues are regarding our students learning needs.