How some schools are using the exemplars / tauaromahi

Teaching strategies | Analysing programmes | Consistent judgements | Self-assessment | Professional development | Parents and trustees | Reporting to the board | Writing better explanations | Reporting forms with students

Teaching strategies

"I discussed writing and identified features in writing [with my class]. I am now focusing more on deeper features than I previously have with children."

"I focused on students re-shaping and then editing their work, for example, having them write one sentence in a paragraph and then two sentences that relate to the opening sentence. I am also focusing on how their writing keeps the audience interested, on using varied sentence beginnings, and on how they meet the criteria we have discussed."

"I have used the student work samples in the exemplars as models for my students. We then read stories and highlight key features. They use these key features to write their own piece of work. This really raised standards once they had seen what I expected of them."

Analysing school and team programmes

"We used the exemplars for planning and setting benchmarks across the school ('Does our level 1 look like this?') and to get a picture of where the gaps might be in our programmes (using the exemplars and matrices). This helped us to identify learning focuses."

Making consistent judgments

"We photocopied and laminated a level 2 exemplar and used it to judge student work against at our team moderation meetings. We each brought six samples of work: two 'wow' samples, two level 2s, and two beginning level 2s; we also suggested two level 2 concerns. That way we get consistency across level 2 in our year 4 classes."

Top

A tool for self-assessment

"We used exemplars and got kids to highlight different parts of the narrative and write in the margins. They keep that exemplar in their books as guidance for writing their own narratives."

"I show the children a sample of work from an exemplar and get them to edit it (to improve their editing skills É as well as develop their critical and thinking skills) without hurting the feelings of the kids in the class."

"[The students] look at an exemplar, at what is in it Ð the positives and negatives, and at putting [what they learn] into practice. Exemplars are good models of ideas. They help to link reading to writing. For example, my students looked for samples of character descriptions in their books and then applied [what they observed] in their own writing. Students... love to read what other young people... write, and it gives them starter ideas."

Supporting professional development

"The diagram Purposes and Text Forms in the Rationale helped us refine our understanding of explanations. The glossary accompanying the English exemplars is superb."

"I used the exemplars with our beginning teachers to show them what the teacher did and how the exemplars can provide a framework to guide them with planning."

"We used them in moderation meetings. We refer to specific exemplars. This means that everyone is talking about the same standards, resulting in more valid assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses, both 'holes' for the students and for a team overall."

Using exemplars with parents and trustees

"Using exemplars with parents helps clarify expectations at particular levels and helps to get them and their children familiar with major assessment requirements next year (NCEA)."

"The exemplars provide good examples to use at report evenings to show parents the standards expected at each level and how their child is doing in relation to the standard."

"It helps parents to see what we mean by what is needed in their kid's work when they can view a national sample at that level."

"We are using laminated matrices with parents to show them what levels their children are working at and towards. We put enlarged matrices in the school hall for parents to look at while waiting for parent-teacher interviews."

"We sent a copy of the Number Strategy page home to parents as we thought it gave a superb overview of levels 1–5."

"I shared with parents what the kids and I have been doing with the exemplars and the matrix. I showed them samples of the children's writing and how we could use the exemplars to report to their children's work. They liked the idea that the same matrix is being used throughout New Zealand and the consistency of level 2 from Auckland to Southland."

"The exemplars helped me to offer parents a neutral judgment on their children's work in relation to samples that have been nationally moderated. I also used the exemplars to back up some suggestions for supporting their children's writing at home."

Top

Reporting to the board

Cambridge School, Waikato
Contributing: roll 230

Learning outcome: Students will write instructions, explanations, and factual accounts and express personal viewpoints in a range of authentic contexts, sequencing ideas logically.

Data: The literacy programme in the senior classes focused on strategies for comprehending transactional text and on how writers go about constructing a text. The children read a variety of descriptive texts during guided reading sessions and examined how the information was organised to convey a message to the reader. They practised using a web structure [a template that helps students to process information] to identify the writer's main ideas and summarise the information that supported the writer's key points. The children... also used the web structure to summarise and organise the information they gained from reading a further descriptive article. They then used the web structure to construct and write their own factual text.

Results: Using the progress indicators from The New Zealand Curriculum Exemplars and the Assessment Resource banks: 19 (51%) of the samples of writing were assessed at level 3;14 (38%) were assessed at level 2; and 4 (11%) were assessed at level 1. These levels are where the writing "best fits" and some of the writing at one level may meet some of the progress indicators at the next level. Of the four children whose writing was assessed at level 1, two are boys for whom English is a second language.

Analysis: The 19 children writing within the indicators for level 3 are at the expected level of achievement. They are:

• sequencing ideas logically;
• supporting main ideas with some detail;
• using a variety of sentence structure, beginnings, and lengths;
• using punctuation with increasing independence;
• using appropriate spelling with between 3 and 5% of errors.

Some of the children had difficulty using the web structure appropriately and, because of time constraints, there was little independent editing or proof-reading. Only eleven of the children attempted to organise ideas into paragraphs.

Recommendations
For teachers and children:

• to identify, discuss, and compare examples of quality writing;
• to use the exemplars to illustrate and set expectations of achievement;
• to use the resource ideas and learning contexts in the English exemplars and in the First Steps manuals.

For teachers:

• to motivate students to write and to understand the purpose for writing;
• to model the structure of different types of texts;
• to model the writing process in relation to different types of texts;
• to identify and promote quality writing;
• to take part in further professional development.

Top

Writing better explanations

We used Investigating Weather Patterns (English Online) [an integrated science and English unit for curriculum level 3, years 4–6] and the First Steps explanation plan [Rigby Heinemann]. I selected good explanations of high interest, including some from the exemplars, for use in guided and shared reading.
The reading was motivation for making wind vanes. After making their wind vanes the children wrote about how these worked. We discussed the features of explanation writing and agreed on a structure for their writing:

• Begin with a definition
• What are the parts of the wind vane?
• How does the wind vane operate? Think about cause and effect.
• Describe its applications. Where and when does it work?
• Describe any special features

Building the wind vanes helped make the writing task more meaningful.

Using reporting forms with students

St Mark's School, Christchurch
Integrated full primary: roll 225

Teachers at St Mark's have used the exemplars to improve their students' skills in poetic writing. One teacher introduced her class to a level 3 exemplar and discussed some of the annotated features in more detail. The students were asked to comment on the focus features in their own work. After assessing their own work, each student discussed it with a peer and completed the Next Time section of the reporting form.

The teacher felt that this process helped her students to identify the intended learning outcome in the exemplar and gave them good models of surface and deeper features.

"Using the exemplar helped me to see what I could do to make my work better without always asking the teacher."

A report form similar to that used at St Mark's is modelled below using student work from a level 3 exemplar. Teachers could use or adjust this model to focus on other surface or deeper features.

Previous | Next | Index | Top