Team Meetings - Classroom Teachers Moderating (Writing)

This afternoon both classroom syndicate teams combined, collaborating together and moderating writing samples by students from each of the eight classrooms (High, middle and low writers). In pairs using the Reading and Writing standards, school writing progressions, and the E-asttle rubrics enabled us to discuss what students were achieving, what they needed to achieve and what they were close to achieving within that specific year level.

Through moderation and discussions with other teaching staff it was alarming how we have many students achieving well below expectation right from year 1 through to year 8. 

Moderation is important to help improve teacher judgement and decisions made about about the learner across all areas of learning. It enables us to think about the need for consistency of judgements made by and between teachers.   



My thoughts/questions

• The number of students achieving below/well below the standard. 
• What can we do as a school to move our students who are achieving well below the standard?
• What is currently happening in our contributing schools and how are they targeting students who are below in reading, writing and maths?
• What do I need to do more in order to see movement (Year level to year level). 
• It continues to amaze how the gap continues to grow for our students, even when shifts are made. How do we stop this from happening? 

What next for me? 

• Continue to conference with students. 
• Ensure students understand the reading and writing progressions. 
• Continue to question the purpose of the activity. Is the learning relevant and beneficial for the learner? 
• Provide more opportunities for my students to write for a range of purposes (inquire, entertain, explain) using different text forms (Diary, joke, poem, report, questionnaire). 
• Continue to collaborate with teachers around their judgements, comments, or feedback when making OTJs. 
• Continue to use a range of evidence to support teacher OTJs.