In a webinar, Jude Arbuthnot, Karl Jorgensen, and Paula Snowball from the Pupuke Kāhui Ako [Community of Learning] described the development of a literacy roadmap that outlined the key literacy learning and milestones for their students from the first year of primary school through until the end of secondary school. Below are some of their key findings and insights into the work of improving students’ literacy outcomes across a community of schools.
Literacy learning cannot be left to chance: The impetus for this project came from literacy data which showed an overall decline in students’ literacy outcomes. While this was in line with national data, it also showed a significant disparity between performance in reading and writing (with reading much stronger than writing) when students reached high school. Teachers had also noticed a large decline in students reading for pleasure, which has contributed to the downward trend in literacy skills. The idea for a literacy roadmap emerged from discussions about essential literacy learning, and the literacy skills that should be evident in students at different ages and transition points: the purpose of the roadmap was to make this explicit. The Coherent pathways for learning through capabilities document took the literacy group within the kāhui ako two years to write. The literacy capabilities it defines are making meaning, critical inquiry, perspective-taking, and taking action, and the literacy group mapped these across the curriculum for all ages. The literacy roadmap is currently a tool used by teachers, but the intention is that it will eventually be developed into something that can also be used by students.
Gaining buy-in from teachers across the kāhui ako is key: It can be very challenging getting a large group of schools, students, and teachers on the same page – in this case, the project involved 10 schools and thousands of students. One of the ways that the leaders of the Pupuke Kahui Āko managed to get teachers from across the community on board was by emphasising the importance of literacy as the key to unlocking the rest of the curriculum, so all teachers would be able to support their students to achieve better results. Focusing on literacy across the kāhui ako was promoted as a way of valuing literacy and its importance to success in school and in life. They were also able to hone in on the needs of the students in their own demographic, which meant in particular that they could have a specific focus on English language learners. The leaders of the kahui āko maintained this buy-in and kept up momentum by constantly coming back to the idea of what is best for students, which is something all schools and teachers are prepared to get behind.
There were benefits for teachers at all levels from the literacy work across the kāhui ako, as they developed a shared understanding of students’ literacy journey from early childhood to secondary. The work of establishing what students’ literacy needs are across all subject areas was in itself valuable, as it encouraged greater communication between sectors, and one of the most important outcomes has been the collaboration and strengthened relationships among schools. There were also opportunities for teachers to grow themselves as teachers by focusing on literacy, so the work became not just about unlocking students’ literacy capabilities, but also unlocking teachers’ literacy capabilities.
In addition to building teacher literacy capacity across all schools, the work across the kahui āko has opened up conversations around professional practice and led to increased sharing of expertise, resources, and professional development between schools. Another benefit is that teachers now have a shared language for talking about literacy across the kāhui ako, as well as a shared language vertically within schools and departments, and across curriculum areas within schools. This has led to specific improvements for students: for example, the shared language around paragraph structure has led to measurably improved paragraph writing at secondary level.
One of the most effective mechanisms used by the kahui āko has been lesson observations across schools. A lot of observation happens between the early childhood settings and the primary schools within the community, and many early childhood teachers have attended structured literacy training sessions offered at Milford School, which supported them in learning how to develop phonological awareness needed for reading and fine motor skills needed for handwriting. Teachers from the Intermediate schools also regularly observe Year 9 & 10 classes at Westlake Boys High School. This enables teachers at intermediate level to gain a tangible sense of the literacy requirements for students once they reach secondary level, which is harder to gain by simply studying curriculum levels and literacy progressions. At the same time, the teachers at secondary level learned that the bulk of literacy work in intermediates was being done with non-fiction texts, so they started using more non-fiction texts in English curriculum so as to build on the skills that students had developed at intermediate school.
Specific areas of focus for the kahui āko have been structured literacy, teaching spelling, and encouraging reading for pleasure. They take an explicit approach to teaching the necessary literacy skills and knowledge needed to improve literacy outcomes, such as a systematic, structured approach to spelling instruction, and an explicit, shared approach to teaching paragraph structure across and within schools.
