Taranaki Secondary Schools’
Literacy NLC
2011
Consider this
Reading is “…perhaps the single
most important technological
skill in post-industrial cultures.”
-Bjorklund, 2005, p. 392
2011 Goals
1. NLC Sector Leadership: To develop sustained
participant involvement in cluster work.
2. Maori Achievement: Raise teacher
expectations of Maori literacy achievement
using literacy data.
3. NZC: Use teaching as inquiry model to frame
investigation into Maori achievement.
4. School Leadership: Develop the leadership
capacity of school literacy leaders.
Goal One
Evidencing the impact:
• Regular email/letter communication
• Clear schedule of meetings
• Everyone attending regularly
• Everyone coming prepared
• Principals regularly updated
• Responsibilities delegated to participants
Goal One
Monitoring the shifts
•Full attendance - Regular letters to principals
and NLC members with clear schedule of events
sent out once a term. Lots of supporting /
reminding / encouraging emails sent too. Full
attendance by five schools; partial attendance by
one school and lost two schools. The format has
meant that for some schools, this is the only PD
they come to because relief is paid for.
Goal One
Monitoring the shifts:
• Accurate minutes of meetings and Wiki updated
regularly with dates and information for meetings
(put these on Google calendar as well) - Minutes
recorded and put on wiki regularly. Google
calendar updated intermittently.
• Follow-ups completed and reported and
participants report incrementally on consequent
changes in teacher practice - Informal reporting
of in-school changes.
• Distributed leadership - Haven’t achieved
distributed leadership…yet!
Goal Two
Evidencing the impact:
• Conduct pre and post e-asTTle testing
• Learn to disaggregate and analyse Maori
data
Goal Two
Monitoring the shifts:
• Complete initial analysis of Term One easttle data – we’ve completed means
analyses and group learning pathways
report analyses as a group and with our
individual schools (third time’s a charm! –
finally getting some shifts in our teaching
staff!)
• Review literature about role of expectations
in effective practice – not done this but
we’ve finally got the data monkey off our
back!
Goal Two
Monitoring the shifts:
• Construct and complete pre- and postmeasurement of teacher understandings of
‘teacher inquiry’ – staffroom chat suggests that
there has been some significant shifts
especially at WHS, IHS and HHS.
• Regularly update Wiki site – Done; notes from
the meetings show how to disaggregate Maori
data and complete analyses 
Goal Three
Evidencing the impact:
• Unpack the principles of Teaching as
Inquiry
• Use disaggregated Maori Achievement
data to draw up key inquiry questions
• Deliberate and consistent focus on
strategic responses to data and inquiry
questions.
Goal Three
Monitoring the shifts:
• Use findings to generate on-going cluster
meeting program – as a result of the GLP
report findings (eg identifying main idea,
read, select and respond to information),
we’ve been working with Ken on how to
broach this impasse (eg how to attack text
structures to find information and how to
use purpose to help find the main idea)
Goal Three
Monitoring the shifts:
• Ideas, responses and strategies are
continuously trialled and refined by cluster at its
meetings and in participating schools - we’ve
really focused on getting the data under control
and our schools are finally getting on top of it;
found that staff have to be exposed to ideas at
least three times before it sinks in.
• Meeting minutes recorded and put on wiki done 
Goal Four
Evidencing the impact:
• Data managed and shared through SMS –
specifically KAMAR
• Literacy leaders understand purpose of data for
kids, staff, principals, BoTs and ERO
• Expectations for improved achievement arising
from data analysis, especially for Maori students
are clearly articulated.
• Data is shared with school staff and used to
inform decisions about effective practice with
respect to Maori achievement.
Goal Four
Monitoring the shifts:
• All participating schools agree to test and share common data
- We’re all using e-asTTle except one school who is coming
on board with it soon.
• We range from increasing confidence using the tool, to
reporting it to staff, to staff actually starting to see what it
shows them and wanting to know what next steps they need
to do. Our group has supported those less confident players.
• But all literacy leaders report increasing awareness of literacy
data in their staffrooms – people are finally starting to get the
point!
• We’ve also supported our local Activities Centre in introducing
e-asTTle as a referral by one of our participating schools 
Goal Four
Monitoring the shifts:
• Results of analysis are reported back to literacy
leaders’ schools – again in all of our schools this is
been done with increasingly good results and the
NLC group is supporting the less confident
members of the group in data analysis and how to
present that to staff. However, these less confident
players are gaining shifts that they don’t realise.
• NLC minutes record PD undertaken – we’ve done
KAMAR, ERO, DATA and NEXT STEPS – last bit of
the puzzle is to analyse end of year data for shifts
and next teaching steps.
Goal Four
Monitoring the shifts:
• Expectations of data use for principals, staff and
ERO on wiki - we’ve a clearer understanding on this;
data for teaching and learning first and foremost;
data to reflect, review and adjust teaching and
learning programs; reflected in our minutes which
are up on the wiki.
• Literacy leaders will provide on going professional
development in their schools to assist teachers to
raise Maori achievement – it’s definitely on going as
we’ve just got the teaching staff interested in the
data!