Duration: 3:30
Rotorua Central Kāhui Ako leader, Nancy Macfarlane explains their staged process for implementing the PaCT for writing, reading, and maths. Nancy says, “Ideally, what we want to have within our CoL structure, is those learner pathways where students and teachers are talking the same language."
Looking at data and sharing information about student achievement, one of the things that we really worked heavily upon and is clearly in all of our theories of improvement and implementation plans, is around the learning progressions. Ideally, what we want to have within our CoL structure, is those learner pathways where students and teachers are talking the same language. So built alongside of that is really the emphasis around having a strong understanding throughout the CoL around the literacy learning progressions in particular, starting with writing.
Once we identified the learning progressions, we then looked comprehensively at the need for a tool that does that across the CoL as well. As the implementation and the development of the PaCT tool came on board, we decided together, based on all the analysis of our data, based on our understanding of having shared languages across the CoL, that this tool was in fact the tool that we wanted to undertake and utilise in our CoL. So the PaCT tool has been well received and the implementation of that through the work with Helen that we did, we soon very much realised that to ensure that we had consistency, that teachers were building their content and their pedagogy knowledge, that we couldn’t do all three PaCT frameworks at a time.
That, it needed to be structured in the way that we went about it so that new learnings could happen for teachers and that the impact would happen for the students. Within our CoL structure we looked at implementing the PaCT over the next three years. So writing in 2017, bringing on board reading in 2018, and finishing with the maths framework in 2019. What we are doing is sharing data as a CoL so we are sitting at the table and bringing along what’s happening in each of the school situations. When we have a student that leaves from a primary school, that PaCT information can go to an Intermediate, but at the moment it can’t go any further than that to high schools.
We have decided as a CoL to ensure that the high schools are involved in the literacy learning progressions, and understanding the progressions, and are pre-empting what’s coming with the PaCT information that all of our high schools have been involved in the PaCT tool implementation as well, and all of the PLD that’s wrapped around it. We have got our high schools at the same workshops delivering PLD around the PaCT tool and receiving the information about the PaCT tool as well.
They also have the Across and the Withins at high schools, have had access through primary school logins to see the tool. So then they can actually experience the videos that go alongside it, the modules, the tutoring and so on so they can see what’s coming. And very closely alongside of the PaCT tool for the high schools, is the understanding of the literacy learning progressions and the progression frameworks. So the sharing of information and the common understandings is really relative and the PaCT tool is helping do that.