Knowledge enables Success

Having settled into my new classroom and gained an understanding of my children I have noticed that there are two large areas of need that require focus.  These are their maths knowledge and their writing - a large number of students are working below and well below the standard.  I have been thinking carefully about how I can address both of these and which one of these is most pressing to address.  

I have completed a mini inquiry around developing maths knowledge during the time when we are doing statistics.  In order to develop my own professional knowledge around this I have read the following research amongst others: 

Using music to increase maths retention

Maths Teaching Knowledge

Making it count - strategies for improving mathematics

As a result of this mini inquiry my knowledge sessions are now varied for the students and include a range of interactive websites that offer explanations, teaching hot spots around certain knowledge areas, interactive games for students, games that students are able to share in with a partner, the development of sheets that allow students to see where their knowledge gaps are and to choose how these can be filled using a variety of different texts and materials and the opportunity for students to use songs and music to help them retain their knowledge.  This seems to have worked so far and is proving successful.  Within the last week of term I will retest these students using summative assessments and be able to use evidence to confirm my observations and formative assessments.

The inquiry that I have decided needs to be largest focus is around writing and develop within these students knowledge around where they are at and knowledge around what tools that they can use to help them progress and achieve their ultimate end goal of working at/above the standard by the end of the year so that they are ready for high school.  Within my class I have students working from between a 2a level and a 4b level with the majority of them sitting around a 3b level.  I have decided to focus this inquiry on these students that are classed as sitting well below as they need to make hugely accelerated progress in order to be where they need to be by the end of the year.

Key findings that I have noticed so far from the students who are working well below:

 - Students are not planning their work

 - Students are not confident editing their work

 - Students are not comfortable knowing when to use basic or complex punctuation

 - Students are still developing the ability to recognise grammatical errors

 - Students do not know what they do not know, and therefore are unsure how to improve.

The one that stands out to me the most is that these children do not know what they do not know - they are not aware of how they can improve and they are not aware of what their errors are.  In order to help students with this, they have been provided with requirements that have them working towards the national standard at each sub-level of the curriculum. They have now identified within their sub-levels the goals that they wish to work on and we have co-constructed success criteria for these goals.  The other findings will be discussed and explicitly taught over the next term across a range of contexts so that they can be understood and applied within a range of contexts - however through having developed goals, students are already far more motivated and are already noticing areas in which they can improve and are wanting to learn.