SEBASTOPOL+COLLEGE

For over forty five years Sebastopol College has served the Ballarat community through the provision of quality education programs. The College is committed to ensuring that students are given every opportunity to achieve their potential within the College environment. Emphasis is placed on all students participating in the wide range of curricula and co-curricula activities offered by the College. The welfare of individual students is well supported through established structures within the College organisation. || ||
 * ||  || =//__**SEBASTOPOL COLLEGE**__//=


 * LITERACY LEADERSHIP AT SEBASTOPOL**

Sarah Slater and Rena Clark were appointed as Literacy Leaders mid 2009. Sarah is the Head of English and Rena is the Literacy Coordinator at Sebastopol. They both teach English 7-12.

Our immediate focus upon beginning this position was to organise and utilise data more effectively. On-demand testing has been conducted in both June and November of each year. We have also organised the testing of year 6 students at transition to secondary school. This data has enabled us to communicate effectively with teachers from all KLAs and to engage students through reflecting on their own progress. It has also been used to inform teaching and learning and target students' individual needs.
 * DATA COLLECTION**

Teachers are provided with both entry and exit data for each of their classes. This has made it easier for them to give evidence based assessment of each students' progress over a semester. Teacher twice-yearly reviews are more transparent through the use of this external and objective data. All teachers are provided with the 'traffic light' model of their students' individual learning levels. This provides information that can assist in differentiating the curriculum within each classroom.

We have linked our model of the Student Reflection Tool to this ongoing collection of data, NAPLAN, classroom assessment tasks and VELS. The Student Reflection Tool is used within the classroom (7-12), and for reviews, parent teacher interviews and when conferring with colleagues. We have both found this resource invaluable for initiating conversations with students within our classes, particularly VCE students, because it engages and empowers them in their learning journey.

This year, two regional literacy coaches were appointed to the college as part of the National Partnerships Project. They have focused their attention on the English domain. As part of their brief they have been working in collaboration with us, on the School Literacy Policy. This is still in development and will be a continuing focus for PLTs throughout 2011.
 * LITERACY COACHING AT SEBASTOPOL**

** Sebastopol College Literacy Policy **

**// “All teachers are teachers of literacy” //**

//The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (//[|//UNESCO//]//) defines literacy as the "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society."//

** Rationale ** The whole community is involved in creating an environment where literacy is accessible to all students. Literacy learning is a lifelong process which enables citizens to engage in effective communication across a diverse range of contexts. At Sebastopol College each learning domain has its own specialized language and texts therefore requiring each teacher to teach the reading, writing, speaking and listening demands of their area.

At Sebastopol College literacy teaching and learning
 * Is the responsibility of all teachers
 * Allows all students to build their capacity and confidence in learning and applying a range of skills to understand and produce the language.
 * Encompasses and integrates reading writing, writing, viewing, speaking and listening for a range of purposes and audiences
 * Develops critical, adaptable thinkers who can learn, unlearn and relearn
 * Builds the capacity of all (students, teachers, parents/guardians) to effectively communication through the use of 21st century technologies.

** Implementations are very broad statements that will be broken down further in the literacy action plan to be reviewed annually. **


 * || ** AIMS ** || ** Implementations ** ||
 * // Professional Leadership // || · School leadership will support and promote literacy as an on-going priority of all learning areas.  || The profile of literacy will be raised across the school and the wider community. ||
 * // Focus on Teaching and Learning // || * To promote PD opportunities to build teachers’ capacity for explicit literacy teaching. || Identify areas of literacy within each domain that require further development and address through professional learning including internal, GTEN, Elluminate, on-line professional learning, professional readings and other appropriate avenues. ||
 * // Purposeful Teaching // || · To collect and analyse data regularly to drive teaching and learning.  || Refer to the 6-18 months Literacy & Numeracy Strategy: **Assessment for Learning** to guide the assessment schedule and through collaborative reflection of students’ work. ||
 * // High Expectations of all Learners // || * To create a culture that enables all students to experience success in literacy given sufficient time and support. || Monitor students’ progress in literacy outcomes and share key learning data with teachers to inform planning and reporting. Continue to develop the use of the student reflection process incorporating student self reflection and teacher feedback. ||
 * // Shared vision & goals // || · To promote and implement a coordinated sequenced whole school approach to the teaching of literacy  || Develop a shared understanding of literacy and literacy outcomes contained within the Victorian Essential Leaning. (VELS) ||
 * // Accountability // || · To identify individual student’s levels of literacy in accordance with VELS and National Curriculum.  || School leadership will ensure school accountability measures are completed in a timely manner by which school and student performance can be evaluated. ||
 * // Stimulating & Secure Learning Environment // || · To provide rich authentic learning experiences to build the capacity of all students in literacy.  || Provide resources, learning spaces and technologies that are conducive to high quality literacy learning and teaching. ||
 * // Learning Communities // || * To ensure a **PLT (across learning areas)**structure that allows teams of teachers to evaluate data, plan collaboratively, develop cohesive and sequential approaches to literacy teaching and share professional practice
 * To pursue productive community partnerships that extends student’s literacy and learning opportunities. || Learning communities including students and their families, staff and members of the wider community share common visions, values and objectives and work collaboratively to enhance the teaching and learning of every student. ||

** Evaluation ** This policy will be reviewed, as a minimum, every three years.

= ** SARAH'S PEER COACHING JOURNEY ** =

=** After attending the early Bastow sessions I was most interested in the concept of peer coaching. My year 8 Foundation English students had studied the novel, 'Letters from the Inside' by John Marsden and, as part of their assessment had to complete a narrative text titled "A Day in the Life". **=
 * In order to engage the students in the drafting and editing process, they teamed up with a year 11/12 VCAL Literacy student to collaborate on their responses using the assessment sheet. For all students this was a useful and enjoyable exercise and we plan to utilise this process in the future. **

**RENA’S ART LITERACY PROJECT** I have been working with the Art KLA to help their students produce literate, annotated work, an essential requirement when students are exhibiting their artworks at senior levels.

**SELF-PORTRAITS (year 7/8)** The Head of the Art department, Lesley Costley-Gray, provided me with a list of terms that could improve the annotations to the artwork of their students. I changed the format of the list and included explanations of words that the students might find difficult.(see Elements of Design) The next step was to work through a power point presentation (Self-Portrait pptx) with the class followed by a discussion of each portrait. The students were encouraged to use the list words to explain their perceptions of the portraits. Students then chose a portrait that appealed to them in some way and completed the cloze exercise (Art Literacy- response to Portrait) which required the use of terminology from the list. They then proceeded to prepare their ideas of their own self-portraits by answering a list of questions (Art literacy Your Own Portrait) which required reflection on their own personality and the formulation of ideas to express something of themselves.



The students then created their own self-portraits. Before exhibiting, the students completed the final cloze exercise which provided the model for a basic annotation to accompany their work. After the first class on this unit, I spoke to their teacher and we agreed that it would have been beneficial to have worked through the power point gradually, in consecutive lessons so as to properly scaffold the students' understanding of the terms and how to use them. //Year 7 class watching and responding to the powerpoint on Self-portraits.// We have extended this process using the art terms to year 10 classes. These students are asked to make a comparison between two works of art commenting on similarites and differences. For our initial trial of this task, we used paintings by Stanley Spencer and Max Beckmann who were contemporaries. Students needed to refer again to the list words (although this time the list was more sophisticated) and choose the most suitable vocabulary to complete their table (see Literacy in Art- Beckmann and Spencer).

From Jenni Kyval: Thanks for sharing this fabulous work with me, Rena. I have saved your art activities and will show the Art staff. I am really impressed by all the information on your site and feel inspired to do some real planning and thinking for my own school.

RENA'S MATHEMATICS PROJECT Building student literacy in mathematics is essential if students are to fulfil their potential in this subject. There is a surprising amount of mathematical jargon that must be mastered in the middle school years before students can comprehend the mathematical task being presented to them. A list of terms taken from the **year 7** **and 9** NAPLAN test over the last few years makes this challenge clearer. I am presently working with the mathematics department to build vocabulary in the classroom and provide a glossary of these terms. We are also considering ways to present students with mathematical problems that are written in a variety of ways but require the same process and have the same answers, as a means of building familiarity with these literacy requirements. I have attached the list of words that the year 7 and 9 students would need to know to successfully complete the NAPLAN test.