01 - Department of Education and Communities - NSW Government

PARTNERSHIPS IN PUBLIC EDUCATIONREPORTING STUDENT LEARNINGOUTCOMESMake furtheradvances inimproving thereporting ofstudentlearningoutcomes.During 1997, the Departmentimplemented initiatives designedto provide a more comprehensiverange of information about studentachievements at key stages ofschooling.English Language andLiteracy Assessment(ELLA) Pilot ProgramELLA is a key part of the NSWGovernment’s State LiteracyStrategy in secondary schools. It isan aid for secondary teachers toimprove literacy outcomes for allstudents.The ELLA Pilot Project was aliteracy test for Year 7 students.Originally, it was planned to trialELLA in 80 to 100 schools. Theresponse from schools was soenthusiastic that a decision wasmade to include all schools whoapplied. Students in 361 schools(over 80 per cent of the state’s highschools) sat for the test.The test includes assessment ofreading, literacy and writing skills.It uses reading and writing tasksfrom across all Key Learning Areasin Year 7.The purpose of the test is to provideteachers and parents withinformation about the achievementlevels of their students and to givethem diagnostic information aboutstrengths of individuals and groups.Teachers will now be able to targetthe needs of individual students,and particular student groups.Results were provided to schoolsin the first week in May andcontained individual studentreports, one for teachers and onefor parents; school summaries ofoverall achievement, performanceon each item and indications ofstrengths and weaknesses.Curriculum links documentsshowed how the test data related toliteracy tasks in each subject area.The School Report Packageincluded results of individualstudents and about the wholeYear 7 group. The report packageincluded data that summariseinformation, such as the averagescores of boys and girls, andinformation about responses toeach question or criterion.The package enables schools tofocus on the achievement ofindividuals, on particular aspects ofliteracy in relation to the demandsof the KLAs and on the relativeachievements of different studentgroups.Ideally, the parent report, in theform of a summary page for eachstudent, will be distributed toparents in the context of theschool’s literacy strategy. It willsupport discussions of howteachers and parents can worktogether to develop and reinforceliteracy skills.Reports for each student containedthe student’s score on each part ofthe test (reading, language andwriting) represented on a graph thatshows the distribution of all scoresin the pilot group. It also containedstatements which describe thestudent’s results on differentaspects of the test, giving anoverview of relative strengths andweaknesses.A series of publicationsaccompanied the results package,to assist teachers to make the bestuse of the ELLA test results. Theyprovide examples of the reports and54 DSE Annual Report 1997