To show we understand the progress students make across learning areas we need to consider how best to track what we are noticing, recognising, and responding to for all students. This enables us to make reliable and valid judgments for teaching, assessment, and reporting purposes.

Actions and supporting resources

Take time to review your school’s assessment systems – that is, what you assess, when, and how. These resources will help steer you along the review pathway:

• Assessment Online: Reviewing your school’s assessment systems
• Assessment for Learning – Using the right tools and resources to notice and respond to progress across the curriculum provides effective pathways to review your assessment processes.

This is the stage where you should be making wise choices about your assessment systems, hitting the "sweet spot" between over- and under-assessment. Think about the ways you can weave the key competencies into your measurement of progress. Use the assessment capability and knowledge of your staff, or bring in outside expertise if necessary.

Locate the resources that identify progressions students should make for the curriculum areas you teach. Use these pages on Assessment Online that list available resources across the curriculum: 

• Measuring progress across the curriculum
• The Learning Progression Frameworks
• Science in the New Zealand Curriculum: Understanding progress from levels 2 to 4 (PDF download)

Work in curriculum area teams to clarify assessment resources and expectations so that all staff have a thorough understanding. Amalgamate your findings to create an assessment document that is easily understood and accessible. Appoint a staff member who will be the go-to person for any assessment queries.

Before the term/year begins, think of one (or more) specific student who you will be teaching. Using one of the progression frameworks (such as The Learning Progression Framework or Science in the NZ Curriculum: Understanding progress from levels 2 to 4), identify which step on the progression the student best fits. Consider what is needed to move them to the next step and plan accordingly. This could be done by individual teachers, but support for the activity within a staff or syndicate meeting will lead to shared understandings. 

During the term, look at what you planned for the previous week. Using your day-to-day observations and learning conversations with students, and your knowledge of the learning progressions.

Identify those students who have made expected progress in one learning area and consider what is needed to move them to the next step. What can you do to help them reinforce/improve on their progress?

Consider those who didn’t make the expected progress: 

• Were the expectations realistic? 
• Do you need to adjust the expectations?
• What can you do to help them make progress?
• Is this the same for other curriculum areas?

Planning example

Using a spiral curriculum to build on children’s prior knowledge – This ERO school story from Papatoetoe North School has useful advice on collaborative planning for teaching and assessment. Keeping children engaged and achieving through rich curriculum inquiries – Teaching approaches and strategies that work (Education Review Office, 2018, p.27).

Using Evidence in the Classroom for Professional Learning (PDF) – Helen Timperley, Abstract of this academic paper: "For teachers to use evidence to improve teaching and learning in their classrooms they need information about what their students know and can do, evidence about their own practice and its impact on students, and knowledge of the research evidence and that from other established sources to give direction for improvements to practice."   

School stories

The impact of the mathematics framework at Lynmore School (PDF): Read why Lynmore School began using the framework, how they got started, and the impact it has had on their teaching and learning.  

Using the writing framework to strengthen writing at Lakeview School (PDF): Learn how Lakeview School planned to use the writing framework to guide their professional development – why they made this decision; how they planned to use the writing framework to strengthen the way they teach and assess writing; and what they hoped the impact would be on their students’ ability to use their writing to support their learning throughout the curriculum. 

Using the LPFs to strengthen writing at de la Salle College (PDF): Find out how teachers at de la Salle College used inquiry as a next step in their professional learning journey to build on their knowledge and expertise to help them assess and monitor students’ literacy progression across all subject areas.  

Using the frameworks to understand literacy progression in years 9 and 10 at Birkenhead College (PDF): Read how Birkenhead College used the learning progression frameworks to deepen teachers' understanding of literacy progression in years 9 and 10. 

Links

• Leading Local Curriculum Guide series
  • Assessment for learning guide
  • Local curriculum guide
  • Information sharing and building learning partnerships guide
• Assessment Online: A practical guide to assessment and reporting

>> Describing progress 

<< Rich learning tasks