On Tuesday the 28th of September, I attended the PaCT Symposium held at Ellerslie Event Centre. With me was Virginia, Veni, Nola and Wendy.  I attended the day because I wanted to see how the tool was evolving and to see if it would deliver results as indicated. The agenda for the day was highlighted for us.

• To help support the roll out of the PaCT to NZ schools.
• To provide practical assistance to schools using the PaCT.
• To support the first end of year OTJ using the PaCT.,

We heard several speakers including

Dr Gill Thomas from New Zealand Maths.

Her session was particularly interesting and she covered the following sections.

• The literacy of New Zealanders
• Teaching knowledge
• Teaching practice

Some of the numbers she shared with us included alerting us to the statistical information that general population needed level 3 and above to operate in life.

At this stage approximately 20% of our population does not achieve this level.

Some of the messages reiterated for us as teachers is to make sure that students are on track with national standard data.

She shared with us how to use the framework to strengthen teachers knowledge about numeracy.

She also expressed her thoughts on us to think about the key ideas not the curriculum level.

The number project allowed educators to identify the steps that the learner progresses through

Not the next step. The general learning direction is linear but the learning is not necessarily next steps.

Gill  highlighted the importance of knowing what to look for when assessing students.

Just looking at a piece of work, without giving instructions of what to can affect the overall score given.

The framework provide a comprehensive view of what reading and writing and maths in the NZC. The PaCT illustrations provide examples of rich teaching and learning in everyday programmes. But the importance of reflecting on the learning is crucial for understanding.

The PaCT illustrations prompt teachers to notice what their students know and can do.

She asked us to consider the following questions

• What opportunities do I  give students in my class to reflect on their learning?
• Think about ranking the students, identify where they are at?

Identify the boundaries of where the chin are sit as a group.

Use the judgement tool to identify where the chin are at.

We must never forget where the children are aiming for. Teachers were continually amazed that they were not teaching enough of certain aspects of mathematics.

I followed up Gill’s session by attending The PaCT and standardised assessment tools.

We were asked to identify the differences between PaCT and other standardised tests.

• Accuracy
• Scaled scores gives a range
• Over a range of information
• Then teacher accepts and gives an otj
• Descriptors scales gives a range.
• It takes more and more to give the next levels.

• Tests normally have norms.
• easTTle has norms

Pact does not yet have norms. The framework looks at how the chin are progressing.

Over 10,000 judgements have been made so norms are developing.

We were also asked, Why would you use an assessment tool beside the Pact?

• Allows me to drill down as a teacher.
• What am I not doing as a teacher.
• School identified large areas of maths that needed teaching.
• Impact on the teaching and learning programme.

We were shown graphs that indicated a close correlation between easttle and PaCT when students use them. PaCT allows us to see different assessment results together.

What kind of information am I using this tool for?

Lynmore school from Rotorua shared their journey.

• Students can cross two year levels.
• Can go directly to the report.
• The teacher can see the areas that need addressing.
• Can I see what is missing in our teaching.
• Teachers need to look at the tool first.
• From the class report teachers can drill down to the individual reports.
• Individual – drill.
• Go back to the child’s evidence.
• The PaCT tool has given the confidence to confirm the OTJ
• Moderate all judgements against all data.
• PaCT has a greater variety of exemplars.

Dialogue from the learner is the most important aspect of learning.

Can they tell you how and why.

Hekia Parata spoke about her support for us to use PaCT.

• The system rationed success through school certificate.
• Locally educated and globally connected.
• Identify language and culture
• We still have too much streaming in New Zealand
• Every year counts for the learner.
• There is a progression in the curriculum.
• How do we ensure that they are getting a full year’s learning.
• Our job is to ensure that the chin are getting a full year’s learning.
• Ensure you are doing it in a consistent way.
• The most potent resource is what is between the ears of the learner.

Community of learners.

PaCT helps you dig deeper into the curriculum.

Assessing for learning and capturing the progress.

The core business of schools is to know learning is happening and how to capture it.

Agreeing on common achievement challenges.

Embedding local content in the curriculum.

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking fast and slow

Each set provides different illustrations

What’s the big idea.

You can delete a judgement for 30 days and so judgement

Discussion around the framework.

There are always 2x surprises.

– conservative or the student is further along

 Overall I learnt a lot from the sessions. The biggest takeaway is

“In what format are we sharing reliable student data.”