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I feel as if I’ve not been in the classroom at all recently. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been out of the room a lot as a number of different tasks have drawn me away. The most time-consuming of these has been my completing of the Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement on every student in my class.
There is no arguing that the data collected will be beneficial; already my reading groups have experienced a complete reshuffle as a result (we’d temporarily used the end of Kindergarten data in order to make a start with our Year 1 students). It’s going to be good, however, to actually get back into the routine and resettle my students into the same after a prolonged period of casual teachers.
The difference this year with our start of the year diagnostic assessment is that it has been system mandated, rather than school-directed. Our Catholic Education Office has invested a serious amount of money and time into training, resourcing and release time to ensure that this happens in every Year 1 class across our Diocese. The aim, I believe, is to improve the literacy learning outcomes for every student. The next step after the assessment, that is, teachers working together in networks to analyse the data and implement learning programs that meet the needs uncovered, is going to be crucial.
