Standout Assessment 2020

Standout Assessment

In 2019, I attended a workshop for middle leaders and we looked at our leadership styles and the ways we could work to our strengths.  Part of this was doing the Standout Assessment which I have just recently read again with the intention of using the information to help me develop as a middle leader.  

I think it important for me to first be better at identifying and acknowledging my strengths while also using what I know about myself to be more effective in my role.

Here is a brief overview of the assessment information.

My next step with this is to make sure I read through the things I can do to take my performance to the next level.

Sharing Progress

Combined Basic Facts Assessment

• Communicate clear and accurate assessment for learning and achievement information.

As part of my Numeracy programme and in order to share with students about their progress as a group, we did a Combined Basic Facts Assessment for addition and subtraction.  

I created a slide showing the amount of progress we had made in our number knowledge from the beginning of the year to partway through term two.

I removed names for this exercise as I wanted to highlight the fact that as a group, we had made some great progress.

Students loved seeing this slide and were proud of the improvements we had made as a class.

Self Love

Kerwin Rae Tells It

I came across this clip as I have with many others that I think are worthy of sharing and resonate with me.  More often than not, I don't take the time to post these clips to my blog.  

This clip has links to things we spoke about and looked into during our Springboard Trust Highly Effective Leadership Teams sessions.  

The main points:

• Sometimes we act in the way we think others think we should be.
• If we are smart, we want to continually improve.
• How do I contribute and help others while I am being the best that I can?
• Be a winning woman by being yourself.
• Self-love is knowing our strengths and weaknesses, delegate the weaknesses.  Accepting yourself the way you are.  You don't need other people's approval.

Language warning here...

Sharing Learning Progress

Number Knowledge 

• Communicate clear and accurate assessment for learning and achievement information.

I always find the middle of the year and end of term two and exciting one as far as student progress and next steps go.  Students will have had half a year to get settled and into the swing of things in different areas of learning.  

Often I wonder as we are going along about how much they have actually achieved and how they are doing in their learning.  With Covid-19 having a part to play in the disruption of our first half of the year, I was worried about what had been maintained and if students had lost or forgotten some of what we had started.

Combined Basic Facts Assessment

One area of concern was Numeracy.  My Numeracy group had just started and I saw significant gaps in number knowledge that I felt needed to be tackled.  

In term one, we did a combined basic facts assessment.  I shared the specific areas that students needed to work on and in class as well as using this as a sample for sharing to whānau through Hero. 

I provided learning opportunities for students to work on then in term two, we completed the assessment again.  Upon marking these, students were keen to see their scores and to see which areas they had improved on and still need to focus on. 

This provided students with clear and specific skills that they could work on and monitor progress.  

iKan Number Knowledge Assessment

Another form of assessment we use is iKan to determine number knowledge learning.  In the senior school, we do this each term.  Often, this is not a well-favoured assessment as many children struggle with the speed and the level of difficulty once the assessment reaches Stage 6.  

In term one, my Numeracy group assessment showed significant areas of need.  Once these were marked, I shared the scores with students by giving them their tests back.  We then spent some time looking at the questions they got wrong so they could determine where they went wrong.  

Fractions was an obvious area of weakness so we worked on this in the first half of the year and had a focus on basic facts and times tables.  

In term two when we returned after the lockdown, we completed the iKan assessment again, marked it and students compared their tests to term one.  It was great to see that students were looking closely at their results and comparing to term one.  

Our next step is to continue to develop specific knowledge areas and complete the iKan assessment each term.  I aim to have a clear picture for parents that students can share and hope to engage more learning from home.

Virtual Comments

Keeping up the Positives

• Actively contribute, and work collegially, in the pursuit of improving my own and organisational practice, showing leadership, particularly in areas of responsibility.

During the time in lockdown and distance learning, I tried to think of ways that I could keep some of our school initiatives to support wellbeing and connectedness being maintained.  

To support our learners, give specific feedback and positive reinforcement, I created Virtual Fish Tickets.  These were used in a similar way that we do at school but looked way better because I could use a gif to make them more appealing to students.  I shared the template with staff and it was great to see that these were also being used and celebrated by most teachers.
The thing I liked about these was that you could personalise the Bitmoji and be specific about what students were getting them for.  You could also highlight the value they had shown.  
During the lockdown, I wrote and gave out about 250 of these virtual fish tickets.  
Feedback from students was positive and on our return to school, some could be heard in conversations about how many they had received.

For Staff

As a staff, we have a wall in the staffroom with named kete that we use to keep up the positives, give compliments, show thanks and aim to make someone's day.  During the lockdown, I created Google Drawings for different staff members and shared them with them.