Teacher guide Literacy and Numeracy Pilot in low SES school communities

TLF ID S7074

This teacher resource describes a pilot implemented in 76 public schools in Victoria, including primary, P-12, and secondary schools in two rural and regional and two metropolitan clusters. The pilot aimed to improve the literacy and numeracy of students in low socioeconomic status communities. This included new arrivals, refugees, Aboriginal students, and students with English as an additional language. The resource is organised in nine sections: Summary, Target student group, Method, Results, Lessons learned, Next steps, Research base, Further reading and links, and Contacts. It identifies the pilot's multifaceted focus on five areas of reform and highlights the importance of a whole-school and cluster approach.





Educational details

Educational value
  • This is a valuable resource for schools seeking an effective way of improving National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) literacy and numeracy results of students with particular needs and backgrounds and also their attainment of the English and mathematics achievement standards from Foundation to year 10. The pilot identified five important areas of focus and reform: leadership capacity to adopt whole-school and cluster approaches; teacher capacity to improve practice in teaching literacy and numeracy; data-driven approaches to targeted learning; student-centred approaches; and community engagement.
  • The advice contained in the Next steps section of the resource is particularly useful in helping schools and clusters learn from the pilot. It identifies how schools need to reach prior agreement on the key elements of their approach; build on effective existing strategies at the same time as introducing new ones; ensure a strong commitment from the school and cluster leadership; provide dedicated time and space for learning teams; use student data as the basis for focused teacher discussions and student-centred pedagogy, and appoint literacy and numeracy leaders or coaches to provide expert support to teachers.
Year level

F; 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10

Learning area
  • English
  • Mathematics

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Commonwealth of Australia
  • Organization: Commonwealth of Australia
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.australia.gov.au
  • Publisher
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organization: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Generic
Learning Resource Type
  • Online
  • Text
Rights
  • © 2014 Commonwealth of Australia, unless otherwise indicated. This material is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licence (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU) unless otherwise indicated. You may distribute, remix and build upon this material, provided that you include the acknowledgement '© Commonwealth of Australia 2014' and license under the same terms any new creations you have based on the material.