Parkvale School
Led by Mark Gifkins, real change has occurred at Parkvale School in Hastings by reflecting on how teachers teach, and by bringing children into the process of teaching and learning.
The challenge
Like many schools at the time, we were busy assessing the curriculum objectives and working pretty hard. ERO visited us and suggested that we reduce the number of assessments we were doing. So we contacted our advisor Stephanie Geddes for her guidance and we joined the Assess to Learn (AtoL) contract as that matched our needs perfectly. That set us on our journey.
Stephanie introduced us to the book Unlocking Formative Assessment by Shirley Clarke. Of course the staff and I were looking at how the strategies in this book related to reducing our assessments to a more manageable level. It soon became clear however that Stephanie was challenging us on how we teach, how we plan, and how we engage children in learning. That confused us! And for the first year of the contract we were struggling with that.
Developing a culture of consistency
Although we had our own planning and assessment document in school, we threw that out and started again. Instead, we produced our own portfolio with matrices, and this document now encompasses the story of our AtoL journey.
The AtoL contract is about formative assessment. It's about looking at the child and the teacher and how they learn and teach. But most importantly, it's giving qualitative feedback to the child, so that they know exactly where they sit on the learning cycle, and understand where they have to go in their next learning step.
Formative assessment practices are now spread throughout the school. We start from the time the child enters the school, whether they come in at year 5 or year 1. Some people said that it would never work in the junior area of the school but we've proved them wrong, it is highly effective. All our young children are able to talk clearly about what their learning intentions are, and what success will look like for them.
Formative assessment in Parkvale is about engaging children in their learning and making them aware of what teachers are trying to teach. It's about raising their abilities, and I believe it is about creating consistency throughout the school. We have a culture of consistency now in which all teachers participate.
First steps
The AtoL approach starts by looking at the way we teach and the way in which we plan for what we are teaching. We identify what we are trying to teach the children – our learning intentions.
Our children work along with the teacher to identify what success would look like for these learning intentions and together they develop a list of success criteria. From there our teachers begin to teach.
We developed a lead team approach in this contract. We went to all the staff, not just our lead teachers, or our syndicate leaders, but the whole staff, and said, "Which one of you have a passion for this project?" Very quickly we had eight teachers who identified that they were keen to take on that role. This group started to work with Stephanie on the AtoL approach and to bring staff on board.
We used Quality Learning Circles to share issues and discuss ideas. We introduced a Buddy system in which the lead team buddied with teachers that weren't in the lead group, and they shared ideas on a more informal basis.
Adaption
The challenge for me as leader was right at the beginning, when my teachers were being questioned about the way in which they taught children. It was challenging to find ways to support those teachers and to help them create the change that was required of their teaching. I also had to support our advisor, Stephanie, in her role as change agent.
There have been a number of other moments that have been extremely challenging in this process. For example, we created matrices so that we all had a clear understanding about the assessments and their links to the learning outcomes. In doing so there was one word we came across, 'precise', and the amount of debate that the word created was amazing. Teachers questioned and discussed what this word 'precise' meant. And you can imagine this huge debate with people having different understanding. In the end the easiest thing was to get rid of the word. But the word continued in our language for about a year. This experience showed us the importance of understanding each word and the 'ownership' that came about in that process.
Another ownership challenge emerged when the Numeracy Team in Hawkes Bay created a number matrix that we adopted. We are having a lot of difficulty at the moment with teachers trying to work out what the matrix means. The difficulty has arisen simply because we didn't write the matrix ourselves. So I have learnt that you should always adapt things, not just adopt them.
Trial new ideas
I think the key thing that a principal needs to do is be a good listener, because there are a phenomenal amount of teachers' ideas that don't get listened to. I have had some wonderful ideas presented to me by various teachers, so I have allowed them the opportunity to trial many of these ideas to see where they go with them.
For example, we have one teacher who used the AtoL approach to create a progression approach to writing. The children in his class have examples of their writing pinned on the walls. From this, all the children can identify exactly where they are at in their writing progression, and they can identify how to take their writing to the next step. I think this process is one of the greatest challenges we can give to children at the moment.
It's also great to see how advisors are using this young teacher to show others what he is doing. The teachers who visit our school to observe this process in action go away excited and wanting to try it. You can't ask for a better response than that.
Making a difference
I see evidence throughout Parkvale that the AtoL formative assessment approach to teaching is very successful. Every child has a matrix, and each teacher has the same consistent approach to assessment, so I am able to collect consistent data. From that I can see we are making a difference in raising the level of achievement of the children here. The data also gives us a way to clearly target areas that need to be worked on.
I've noted when I've gone into classrooms that the wall displays have changed. Instead of being summative displays that represent the children's quality of work, they have now become interactive displays where children can see exactly where they sit on the learning continuum and where they can progress to. So this process is engaging children.
Formative assessment has bought about changes for families in our community too. It has given parents enough information to become part of the learning journey for their child. Parents discuss the child's portfolio midway through the year, and again at the end of the year.
From this, they can identify where their child sits on the national norms. It clearly shows where the child has come from, their learning path, and what the next step in their learning is. Parents can look at the portfolio with the child, they can work with their child, and say "these are the things we need to focus on and to improve."
The benefits of this programme were summed up recently for me when this small child came into my office and said "Mr Gifkins, I know why we have learning intentions, it's so we know what we are doing and what we can do to get better at it". And I think that clarifying this for a child is a huge breakthrough.
