Behind the data lifting literacy and numeracy achievement at Nayland College

Nayland College is in Stoke, Nelson.

Nestled into Stoke in sunny Nelson, Nayland College refuses to settle when it comes to its students’ potential.

“We place a high value on developing independent learners who have control of their own futures,” says acting principal Hannah Banks. “It’s really important that our students leave us as confident, adaptable young adults.”

Part of this journey for the school has been overhauling literacy and numeracy practices, stemming from its decision to participate in the NCEA co-requisite pilot in 2022.

Keen to get some baseline data, Nayland got its entire cohort of Year 10 students to participate in the pilots to get a better picture of where students were at and what to build on.

Corrin Vedder is junior achievement lead at Nayland College and across schools teacher for Te Kāhui Ako o Ōmaio ki Tahunanui.

“Our key findings were not really surprising,” says Corrin Vedder, junior achievement lead at Nayland College and across schools teacher for Stoke Tāhunanui Kāhui Ako. “We knew that writing would be low, and it was. It was much lower than reading and numeracy.”

The results gave the school a clear direction. “This cohort of students were champs,” she says. “They did a tough thing, many of them knowing they might not pass. But it showed us that we needed to make sure ākonga could pass these assessments.”

And so began a new drive for achievement at Nayland College.

A whole-school approach

“The results gave us a place to start and provided information we could also share with our kāhui ako,” says Corrin. “As a first step, we did a comprehensive stocktake of where literacy practice sat in our kura.”

Part of this stocktake was doing a learning area literacy readiness check using the literacy and numeracy support in schools guide provided by the Ministry of Education. The readiness check asked a series of questions broken down into broader themes and then gave ratings based on a series of descriptors.

“This gave us information on how each department and our school leadership team viewed themselves and literacy readiness in the wider school,” says Corrin. “We found that most learning areas were still in the early stages of their confidence and understanding of how they were specifically supporting literacy.

“It was clear we needed to develop a shared understanding of what being literate and having literacy skills meant first.”

The school initiated a whole-school approach to developing these key skills.

The approach, which blends insights from The Writing Revolution and The Syntax Project, centres around viewing writing as a process, says Corrin.

As well as building vocabulary and a knowledge of sentences and paragraph construction in professional learning and development (PLD) sessions, the school introduced writing mats into every classroom.

“The writing mats have our process (think, plan, write, edit) on them, as well as grammar, action words, punctuation, sentence structure and PEEL (point, evidence, explanation, link) paragraph prompting,” says Corrin.

The mats have been adapted by different learning areas, to make them specific to each subject.

“For example, our technology classes have adapted the mats to include writing for design processes,” explains head of technology Cushla Laufkotter. “That means sentence starters linked to the SOLO (structure of observed learning outcomes) progressions, and common technology vocabulary. Both juniors and seniors are using the mats when they are planning and writing their design briefs.

“Students are starting to make connections between the vocabulary and their definitions across subjects, and the scaffolded writing process is taking away the barrier to starting writing that we experienced in the past.”

Gerd Banke, assistant head of science, highlights how her department has benefitted from the mats as well.

“The students are using starter sentences and our PEEL map to structure their paragraphs for assessments. They then use our punctuation checklist and science-specific vocabulary checklist to proofread their work before handing it in for feedback and editing.

“We are really impressed at how well the students are writing,” she says. “We are finding that with the scaffolding, our students are able to write quite complex sentences and paragraphs. They are articulating and explaining their points really well.” Corrin agrees.

Assistant head of science Gerd Banke is finding that the writing mats are helping students write more complex sentences and paragraphs.

“We are seeing a noticeable shift in students’ understanding of the mechanics of writing – basic punctuation is becoming a habit and there is an improvement in sentence construction. Students are starting to see literacy as happening across subjects, and not just associate it with English,” she says.

All three agree that support from senior leadership is important to taking a whole-school approach.

“Senior leadership support for any school initiative is important, but when we are asking teachers to step out of their comfort zone and take on new challenges it is vital,” nods Hannah.

“We are united behind this kaupapa because we understand it is key to students experiencing success across the curriculum,” adds deputy principal Rowan Taigel.

“A huge amount of work has been done in the teaching community across New Zealand to develop educators’ understanding that we’re all teachers of literacy and numeracy.”

Sharing data to create pathways

Corrin transitioned into the across schools teacher role at the start of 2023, and was quick to share the outcomes of the NCEA co-requisite pilot cohort to principals of feeder schools.

Though initially concerned about the data, the kāhui ako quickly realised there was an opportunity to collaborate to lift achievement rates.

“Seeing the pilot results brought a sense of common responsibility for our learners,” adds Nayland Primary Schools’ across schools teacher Belinda Mackean in support. “We could feel the threads connecting us to their future success and the importance of this.”

They initiated a collaborative project to establish coherent ‘pathways’ for ākonga to make sure there is consistency in literacy learning throughout a student’s education.

“We discovered that many teachers often didn’t know what was being taught to their students both before and after [having them in their class]. So writing the pathways was a way to make sure that the most important learning was not left to chance for any learner in our kāhui ako,” says Belinda.

Junior students using the writing mats to check the grammar of their writing in science.

“These pathways were derived from our data, the curriculum refresh, the Common Practice Model, and the requirements of the NCEA co-requisite,” adds Corrin. “For example, the results we got from the NCEA literacy and numeracy common assessment activities (CAA) influenced our decision not to do a combined literacy pathway and create separate writing and reading pathways.”

Lifting student readiness

At the same time, Nayland College continued to refine its approach, entering only students who felt ready to sit the literacy CAAs.

“In the first pilot round we had some students very far away from passing, while others did pass. We found there was a clear correlation between some of our internal testing data and those pass rates,” says Corrin.

“We decided that our challenge was to improve teaching and learning practices to lift student readiness, not throw them all in and see how it washes out.

“By entering students when they are ready (which is the Ministry’s recommendation), it became about all subjects working to raise literacy and numeracy skills,” says Corrin, emphasising the importance of targeted teaching and learning practice.

To better assess readiness for the CAAs, the school did PLD on e-asTTle testing.

“The PLD allowed us to design our e-asTTle testing in the way that would give us data that helped us check if the students are ready to sit the assessments,” says Corrin.

“We chose to do the PLD because we knew that we didn’t want assessment to drive our learning. By using our students’ e-asTTle data differently, we’re able to have better learning conversations with them and set goals around their literacy skills.”

New focuses for numeracy

While the school has had an initial focus on literacy, there have been clear insights for numeracy too.

Courtney Gravett, assistant head of learning for mathematics, says the NCEA co-requisite pilot allowed the school to identify some key areas for improvement.

“We discovered we needed to put bigger emphasis on students being able to explain their answers, and on making sure students have a better understanding of how concepts link together,” she says.

Nayland’s mission is to develop independent learners who have control of their own futures, says acting principal Hannah Banks.

“Students can’t just learn the algorithm for converting a decimal to a fraction, they need to see how they relate. This has required a consistent focus on vocabulary. In mathematics, understanding the language is a step towards understanding concepts – for example, understanding that minus and subtract are synonyms. We’ve begun teaching root words and prefixes for maths concepts to help them work out unfamiliar terms and more deeply understand concepts.”

The changes have meant ākonga are more aware of the specific skills they need to develop to be ready, says Corrin.

“We want our students to go into assessments certain that they can achieve because they have the skills to do so.”

Ultimately, says Corrin, Nayland’s approach is about “students feeling empowered by having literacy and numeracy skills to help them succeed in all subjects – and all their mahi – and leave kura as literate adults”.

While acknowledging ongoing challenges, she remains optimistic about the progress made and the future of literacy and numeracy outcomes at Nayland College.

“The shared focus is starting to pay off. It’s a process, but the results are encouraging.”

Students using the writing mats in science.

Tips for taking a
data-driven approach to enhancing literacy and numeracy outcomes

• Do a stocktake of what data you collect, why you collect it, and who can access it. Build consistency across data collection and use –
  for example, by using e-asTTle for both literacy and numeracy.
• Work with feeder schools to continue building consistency. As a kāhui ako, discuss what you assess, how you collect data, when you collect it and what you need for transitions.
• Don’t collect data for data’s sake. There must be a point to assessments, and reflection and action needs to be taken from it. Plan this reflection and action time into the assessment so that you and the students have next steps.
• Approach your data with the belief that students can learn. Data should be unpacked with a lens and language of student agency.
• Give staff time to look at data and plan learning around it. Don’t just share data, give teachers time to analyse it and plan actions. Support them to analyse and interpret literacy and numeracy data, especially if they are not subject specialists.
• Use student and teacher voice alongside the data. Work with your students to monitor their personal learning data together.
• Don’t be afraid to call a gap a gap. You can’t fix it if you can’t acknowledge it.
• Allocate resources appropriately – give a staff member the time to make this their mahi and to organise, collate and share information. “Having a staff member with the expertise to analyse our ‘big picture’, do an audit of our current provision and capability, develop a road map of the specific actions needed to improve that provision and capability and then to develop the resources and the professional development support needed for this has undoubtedly been the biggest factor in our success so far,” says Hannah.
• There’s no right time to start. Begin with imperfect approaches and improve them as you go.