English

Junior Programme and meeting Students’ Needs

Assessing students’ abilities and adjusting programmes to meet students’ needs and abilities are vital. The Assistant Principal leading the Curriculum, Mrs Russell, administers Progress and Achievement Test (PAT) results twice yearly. She works with Mrs Versey, HOD Learning Support Department, to provide important information to staff, such as Specific Learning Difficulties. Year 9 diagnostic data identifies “at risk” and “extension” students also. Our Junior English Programme is designed to prepare students for NCEA and to become life-long learners. Most Year 9 classes are not streamed so Differentiated Learning practices are important. In 2021 we have four mixed ability Year 9 classes. Our Year 10 classes are streamed into one large Accelerate Class, two mid-band classes, and a small Learning Support class. The students from the Year 10 Accelerate Class continue to achieve high standards in their future years in reading and writing. When tracking these students, we see high levels of achievement gained once NCEA is commenced, and several utilize their study of Macbeth to gain high grades in Internal Assessments such as ‘Connections Across Texts’. The Scholarship programme later builds on the work done in this Accelerate Class.

Teaching practice is based on the Year 9 and 10 Teachers’ Handbooks, which have common summative assessments for all ten NCEA standards: ‘Written Texts’ has sub-sections: novel, and short texts (short story and poetry) to ensure that a wide variety of literature is taught. Junior Examinations are important. Three ‘Written Texts’ (a short story, poem and novel) and an ‘Oral/Visual Text’ are assessed in class assessments at the end of each unit of work during the year and again in the College Examinations. The College Examinations are two hours and include Written Texts, Visual Oral Text and Unfamiliar Texts (students read and assess the effects of language features in an unfamiliar piece of prose and a poem.) These assessments model the NCEA External Examinations.  Mrs Drabble writes separate Year 9 and 10 Learning Support Exams and reports on these, aligning them to our College Exam.

Junior Assessments are used for a variety of reasons. To improve students’ learning, in-class summative assessments are used as both assessment of what has been learned, and as a teaching tool for future units. The class assessments and the College Examination identify students who need future support or extension. Year 9 and 10 class assessments are combined with the Examination grades when selecting the next year’s classes. We use a consistent Examination structure so trends and tracking can be seen.