At Ashfield Public School online platforms are used to collect data about student achievement. For example, Essential Assessment is used to track progress in Mathematics and identify specific areas of improvement for a particular student. The Star Reader program by Renaissance calculates the growth of a student’s reading age at particular points in time across the year. Microsoft Excel is used to organise information from the Writing Band Tool.
This introduction of online platforms to assess and organise student learning has transformed teaching. Online platforms provide an unprecedented availability of data and information to understand student learning at a whole school level, and in the classroom.
At a whole school level, data from online platforms is used to track the performance of student cohorts, from K-6, as they progress across the school years, and monitor that expected growth is being attained. It drives an improvement agenda and enables the setting of targets that narrow and sharpen attention on whole school learning priorities. For example, data from the 2020 DoE Check in Assessment for Year 3 & 5, identified vocabulary as an area for literacy development with the subsequent introduction of a whole school initiative, ‘A sentence a day’.
Whole school data is used to monitor the consistency of teaching throughout the school and evaluate the impact of the quality of teaching. This enables the school to identify areas for improvement in teaching practices, and design teacher professional learning that has a high impact on student progress and achievement.
Whole school data also informs decisions about the use of resources including the purchase of materials and the deployment of specialist staff, in ways that best address the learning needs of all students. Data provides evidence to justify expenditure on specific interventions and enrichment programs for students requiring additional or specialist support.
At a class level, data from online platforms increases the ability of the teacher to adjust Teaching and Learning Programs to address individual student needs. Class data is the basis for fair and knowledgeable conversations with other teachers, students and parents, with the identification of learning goals and specific next steps for achievement and growth.
Information from online platforms has created new expectations for education accountability including the requirement that parents are provided with personalised and comprehensive information about student learning, growth and next steps. There is also a requirement that teaching is differentiated to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities.
At Ashfield Public School, the ongoing challenge is to effectively use the information provided by online platforms by transforming it into constructive action that positively impacts on learning to support the growth and achievement of all students.
https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=aer
https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/practice/Pages/insight-data.aspx
https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/images/stories/PDF/Re-assessing_Assessment_v6.pdf
https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=research_conference_2005
