Wed, 27 Oct 2004

Karoro School, Greymouth leads the way

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Karoro School students and teachers are leading the way in the use of a groundbreaking new assessment tool that gives parents in-depth information about students' progress, Education Minister Trevor Mallard said today.

"I was impressed to hear about how Karoro School uses the assessment tool asTTle to really improve students' skills in reading and writing.

"Our government is really focusing on lifting reading and writing standards in our schools, and asTTle (Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning) is an excellent means of showing students' progress, and pinpointing where students need more help.

"Over the past two years teachers and students have been working towards making assessment truly useful. This is great to see. Karoro School has a whole toolkit of strategies to make teaching and learning come alive for students. AsTTle is one of these tools," Trevor Mallard said.

Trevor Mallard saw these tools in action during a visit to the school today.

"I am told that this is part of a school-wide initiative at Karoro to give students the skills to be life-long learners. The school has developed an enquiry based learning model that encourages students to know themselves and to know their strengths and weaknesses.

"Karoro School has taken the initiative in the use of asTTle and other innovative teaching strategies and students are the big winners."

AsTTle, a New Zealand invention, was rolled out to schools in 2002. It enables teachers to:establish where children are at in reading, writing and mathematics;identify what the next learning needs may be, and change lessons accordingly; andaccurately share children's achievement data with parents.

"I would really encourage all parents to check asTTle out; it's attracting international attention. AsTTle is unique in that it gives parents and caregivers a much more accurate picture of how their child is doing early on so that any problems can be picked up and worked on before it's too late."

ENDS

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