ALL Writing Group

Our school goal is based around what are we doing to better improve māori achievement within our school? Our Assistant Principal at the start of the year has analysed our school writing data and OTJ's identifying yr 8 Māori students who are below in writing. Through this analysis three Māori students were seen to be below in writing. Based around this data, our school has been given funding to run a 15 week acceleration programme in our classes. Through discussions with the Assistant Principal, I created a mixed group (Learning levels, below, well below and both yr 7 & 8's) of Māori students. This programme started week 9 of Term 1 and is now in its 6th week. 

Our Learning Journey

As a group, my ALL students have come a long way. The first lesson started with why we write (Purposes). First thoughts were - 

• Good Employment
• Get a job
• For my job
• Because I have to

From here I got students to research reasons around why we write. The purposes for writing they found were to - 

• Inform/Tell
• Explain
• Persuade/Convince
• Entertain
• Inquire
• Entertain
• Recount
• Socialise

Through identifying the purposes as to why we write both Nick and I got students to create a T.I.P chart (Term, Information, Picture) to help them better understand the different purposes as to why we write.  Students then presented this to their peers. 

From there, each lesson we looked at the structures when writing to recount for example and getting students to identify the structure within a text. 

Throughout all of this learning, Nick and I discussed the importance of creating a learning wall so that our learners could refer their learning when they were unsure about the purpose for writing, or how to write a recount. 

After this learning, week 1 of Term 2, I had students carry out their sign post of success and next learning steps. For some they still found it hard to identify and understand the purposes around why we write, text forms and audiences. So through reflection Nick and I thought about how we could make the connect more clear, e.g. what is the purposes, who is the audiences and what are text forms.  

Making it more visual for learners to identify what purpose, audience and text forms mean.

Nick and I are now guiding students in creating a resource that can be used across the school to help students and teachers understand why we write, the different text forms we can use and identifying our audiences. Leaners will be working in pairs. Below is an example of what the booklets could be laid out. 

How does the ALL Group work?

• Students engage in acceleration learning 4 days a week (Monday - Thursday)
• Runs for at least 30minutes. 
• Students plan for learning using their tracker.
• Nick (Assistant Principal) and I team teach
• ALL Teachers (Nick, Sally, Dave, Zoey and I) meet every second Wednesday to discuss progress, next steps.

Students use class dojo to keep parents connected with their learning through our ALL writing. Learners provide a reflection on their learning and parents are encouraged to make comments about their childs learning.

Where to next? 

• Continue to encourage parents to provide feedback as opposed to like their Childs reflection comments. 
• Identify deliberate acts of teaching that I am going to use for a lesson. 
• Supporting students throughout the creation of their resource to ensure they are meeting their writing goals. 

Teacher Reflection: 

I have found this Acceleration not only beneficial to me as teacher, but also beneficial for the learners involved, as it supports them in knowing the reasons/purposes as to why write. I am now able to ask these students the purpose of their writing and they are slowly beginning to be able to tell me. 

Learning Wall