Assessment and reporting guidance

Cobden School is a full primary school in Greymouth with a roll of around 150 students. This story illustrates how the school improved teaching and learning for ākonga through the development of a graduate profile. 

Developing the graduate profile  

The school consulted with learners, teachers, parents and whānau on what they wanted for their school. This process took several months. The leadership team were adamant that the consultation process shouldn’t be rushed and to involve all stakeholders to create universal ownership and commitment. 

The responses showed alignment between all stakeholders. They were developed into 10 goals and formed into a graduate profile of the dispositions desired in Cobden School learners. The profile includes 10 indicators underpinning each goal. This formed a rubric with progressions. Of particular note is a description of what each goal looks like for adults within the school community. The school felt everybody should strive to live up to the values embedded within the profile, children and adults alike.

See Materials that come with this resource to download Cobden School graduate profile August 2017 (.pdf). 

Using the graduate profile 

The graduate profile underpins teaching and learning in the classroom. 

• Ākonga in the senior school select their own goals from the graduate profile. These are evaluated each term and learners collect evidence of attainment. 
• Ākonga in the junior school use the graduate profile daily as a formative assessment of dispositions for learning. 

The graduate profile drives the school’s local curriculum decision making and reporting processes. The board of trustees insisted the graduate profile be reflected in the strategic plan and the profile underpins strategic goals.  

Outcomes 

The school has seen considerable shifts in the dispositions, progress, and achievement of ākonga. Teachers note a marked increase in learner confidence. The number of ākonga deemed to be at risk has significantly decreased. Local secondary schools have reported that learners coming from Cobden School are confident, critical thinkers.  

Leaders and teachers have developed consistent teaching practice across years 1 to 8. There is an expectation that teachers’ inquiry goals should relate to the Graduate Profile. Student voice is collected and used to improve teaching and learning.  

The school has developed a culture of collaboration across all staff. 

• The Principal and the Deputy Principal share an office, as do the school secretary and the Principal’s PA. 
• There is no stigma to sharing problems of practice. Teachers take shared responsibility for progress and achievement. Senior leaders are part of the team. 
• There is opportunity for ongoing reflection on progress, as a whole staff and within teams. This reflection is marked by professional trust and respect. 
• The school hires staff who fit in with the school’s collaborative philosophy. 

Ormiston Junior College in East Auckland is a year 7 to 10 middle school. The college is constructed as an ILE and follows an innovative approach to teaching and learning. This story describes how the school uses personalised assessment to grow self-regulated learners.  

Approach to teaching and learning 

Ormiston Junior College has four components in how they use time and space as a resource.  

1. MAC/Kainga: (Mentor Advisor Coach, Kainga – a gathering)
   This element provides personalised support and learning programmes for the holistic development of learners. There is a focus on social/emotional learning, learning to learn and metacognitive skills, knowledge, and dispositions for better learning, and hauora.  

2. Whānau Ora: (The health of our family) 
   This element explicitly provides daily opportunities for movement and taha tinana to support hauora and support learners' ability to learn and concentrate throughout the day.  

3. Literacy and numeracy learning labs 
   As a middle school, literacy and numeracy skills, and how they relate to the rest of the curriculum, are vital to prepare students for success in accessing and processing. This programme teaches literacy and numeracy with a metacognitive and transdisciplinary focus and involves the learners getting support with work from all other areas of the curriculum. 

4. TAIP (Transdisciplinary Authentic Inquiry Projects)
   The school’s project-based learning curriculum forms half of the timetable. Students complete at least three projects each year that are connected to school-wide big ideas and enduring understandings. All curriculum areas and disciplines can be explored in student projects as long as the principles are met. 

Creating a graduate profile 

Staff developed a graduate profile drawing from the learning area statements, strands/achievement objectives, and key competencies of the 2007 curriculum along with other key resources like Guy Claxton’s Building Learning Power and the OED Nature of Learning. This profile was used to develop the criteria for digital learning badges.  

The system is based on the principles of gamification to encourage student participation and engagement.  

• Badge criteria include skills, knowledge, and learning dispositions. hauora, relationships, and integrity are important. The criteria give credit for the application of knowledge. 
• Ākonga co-construct their learning journey with their TAIP coach and MAC. They select meaningful artefacts and goals to discuss or present. 
• Ākonga "bid" for badges, which are awarded after self, peer, and teacher assessment. Assessment is integrated into learning experiences to develop self-regulated learners. 
• Ākonga curate their learning through self and peer assessments, and the presentation of evidence of achievement in learning artefacts. Narrative assessment describes the circumstances in which the learner achieves their learning. 
• Teachers work with ākonga to ensure they achieve curriculum coverage in "bidding" for badges; learners cannot choose only those areas that they like or are good at. 

Teachers supplement the digital badging process with formal e-asTTle testing and PAT Listening.  

Information on achievement is available to parents and whānau via the school’s SMS. They can see badges that are being worked on and when they are awarded. Progress and achievement information is summarised and digitally available for parents at the end of term.  

Example of an end of term 1 narrative assessment for a year 8 student 

TAIP coach comments: X was challenged from the start of his TAIP this term as he took time committing to a project idea. However, once started, his group progressed well and made some good connections to identified learning areas. X's TAIP focused on designing and developing an authentic and fun sporting game. An additional challenge was the ability to conduct research and combine this with practical testing to ensure their game benefits health and fitness, which was the main component of their learning area connection. Moving forward X recognised a more concentrated focus at the start of the term will have a positive effect throughout the whole term and this is something he will take into TAIP 2. 

MAC comments: This year X focused on continuing to complete his learning to a higher standard with more consistency. His personal goal was to take the initiative and share ideas, questions and to contribute in more situations. He has begun to do this and test himself, and even share his sense of humour more often with the group. X finds speaking in groups difficult, but has been rising to the challenge, and participated in communication skills learning activities, and explaining his thinking more frequently and with less prompting. X’s ability to relate to others beyond his peer group is growing and supports new learners to understand the technology. This is an area that is still not comfortable for X. However, his willingness to take steps to get out of his comfort zone, communicate, and relate to a wider range of people in a range of settings is a great start this term. X’s next steps are to continue to think about how he shares his ideas both formally and informally and apply strategies for verbal communication that will help to make sure his projects for MAC are completed to the level that he is thinking at, rather than the level he is willing to communicate at. 

What's working well  

• The school has an integrated assessment system based on The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum.
• Ākonga work at their own pace and level to earn badges. 
• Learner self-regulation is at the heart of the system; ākonga choose, in consultation with their teacher, the context and direction of their learning. 
• The badge system engages learners – they enjoy it and trust the process. 
• There is an integration of teaching, learning, and assessment for natural cross curricula connections. 
• Online access to assessment information is building a community narrative about progress and achievement. 

Leeston Consolidated School is a year 1 to 6 primary school on the outskirts of Christchurch, with a roll of around 400. 

The leaders and teachers at Leeston Consolidated School worked with Maree O'Boyle, a primary science facilitator from UC Education Plus in Canterbury, on teaching, learning, and assessment in science.

The school aimed to build teachers’ understanding of the nature of science - science capabilities, in order to develop the science capabilities in their students. They had 100 hours of Ministry of Education PLD funding to do this.  

Professional learning alongside staff to meet the school’s needs included: 

• class team teaching 
• observing-mentoring 
• science inquiry learning conversations 
• staff meetings and Teacher Only Day 
• guiding and supporting the Lead Teacher in updating their local Science Curriculum based on The 2007 New Zealand Curriculum 
• assessment and moderation. 

Teaching and learning 

Planned science teaching in classrooms focused on students developing skills and processes from the Nature of Science – Science Capabilities strand, while carrying out and recording scientific experiments. Teaching and learning focused on:  

• observational drawing 
• using scientific vocabulary 
• asking questions. 

Students’ assessment data was recorded using an observational drawing master sheet developed by Warren Bruce and Maree O’Boyle.

See Materials that come with this resource to download the Observation Vocabulary Questioning Sheet (.pdf). 

Seesaw, a digital portfolio tool, is used to record the responses of the junior students who are not yet writing.  

The school fosters an investigatory scientific mindset in students through the process of context, content, and critique. 

Moderation 

Students are assessed against rubrics adapted by Maree and Warren from the Science Exemplar Matrices (PDF below) which detail a progression of learning from curriculum levels 1 to 5. The rubric uses the metaphor of the life cycle of a frog (eggs to full cycle) to illustrate development through the curriculum. The rubrics detail the expectations of students at each level and enable teachers to assess students’ capability and progress. Students are assessed at the beginning of the teaching, then again at the end. The school divides each curriculum level into beginning and proficient, so that progress within a curriculum level can be documented and celebrated. 

See Materials that come with this resource to download Example Assessment Rubrics (.pdf). 

Careful moderation is carried out across the school, focusing primarily on the work of the priority learners identified in each class. Teachers find that the conversations and discussions in science inquiry and moderation sessions support them not only in the accurate assessment of the work of all students in their classes but in getting to know their learners and furthering their science curriculum knowledge. The sessions also enable the school to collect moderated exemplars of student work at each level. 

The school’s in-depth PLD focus on science has resulted in increased engagement of the students and improved confidence and capability of all teachers. Science leadership in the school has developed and strengthened along with renewed community interest. The school’s four-year plan for science teaching and learning uses the contextual strands as the vehicle for focusing on the nature of science - science capabilities which align with the key competencies. Expectations are for a minimum 40 science lessons each year, equivalent to one each week. Over the four years students will cover all the strands of the curriculum and there will be a record of their progression of learning within science. Improving students’ scientific capabilities is an important part of Leeston School’s drive to develop students who are competent, connected, and actively involved members of their community.