Illustrations of practice

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students. They model the use of the resource for preparing students to meet the HSC minimum standard, in the context of teaching and learning in different KLAs in Stages 5 and 6. 

This illustration of practice shows how the resource could be used to support a group of Year 10 Aboriginal students. 

Murrumbidgee Regional High School is a comprehensive high school which operates across two sites: Griffith and Wade. The high school has an Aboriginal Learning and Engagement Centre which was established to support the Premier’s Priority to increase Aboriginal students’ attainment of the Higher School Certificate by 50 per cent by 2023 with cultural identity.  

To do this, the school focuses on engaging closely with the community and families. It is important to note that part of the student’s journey is to encompass a sense of cultural and language identity. Positive and valued connections to Aboriginal perspectives are embedded into curriculum and a sense of belonging to the school community is key in supporting students as they work towards achieving their HSC credential.  

At the Griffith campus, which has a population of 14.72% Aboriginal students, key considerations such as improved student engagement, connectedness, attendance and rapport drive teaching and learning practices to support student achievement.  

Allison is the Head Teacher Transition and Engagement. She works closely with the centre’s appointed teacher Nikki, and the AEO Kerrilee. They are currently supporting ten students who access the Aboriginal Learning and Engagement Centre for personalised support in an ongoing capacity. The centre prioritises its knowledge of the students’ Personalised Learning Pathways (PLP’s) to support improved learning outcomes and understand the educational aspirations of each student.  

Allison uses several strategies to get to know her students and best plan for personalised instruction. Firstly, she looks at the students' holistic schooling experience including school records, patterns of attendance, and student interests. 

She consults the ‘Tell Them From Me’ survey data and has conversations with classroom teachers to identify successful methods used to connect with students.  

Based on her conversations with staff, she notes her regular email communication informing them of student contributions to community or extra–curricular activities are helping to build rapport between teachers and students, thus fostering a sense of connectedness to the school. 

Allison notices a correlation between attendance rates and embedding cultural perspectives into classroom practice. 

To support students to achieve the HSC minimum standard in writing Allison and her team consult with the English faculty, then meet with the Aboriginal students to outline the upcoming process of support. This will involve students being supported in the Aboriginal Learning and Engagement Centre twice a week.  

Part of the initial process of targeted support involves students sitting the online practice HSC minimum standard writing test. 

After the students have completed the practice test, the team then meet with the English faculty, and using the NESA marking rubric and Writing Achievement Level Descriptions, analyse students writing to identify their level of achievement. From their analysis the team has determined students require targeted literacy support in order to achieve a level 3 in the HSC minimum standard writing test.   

Allison uses her time with the faculty to provide staff with professional learning focusing on how to make connections with Aboriginal students. They discuss the significance of rapport, connections to community and school to foster a positive relationship with students to increase engagement with the curriculum. She is pleased to hear teachers are identifying students as having cultural expertise, and are seeking their input about culture and Aboriginal perspectives in the classroom. Allison and Nikki review students PLP’s for information on their preferred learning styles.  

They note students prefer to work collaboratively and this is confirmed when they meet with students at their next Aboriginal Learning and Engagement Centre visit. From their analysis of the practice writing scripts, the team determines that explicit teaching of text structure and sentence types will be key to supporting improvement in student writing as this was consistent among the scripts. 

The team can see from the writing scripts that dividing the students into two groups based on ability and areas of need for targeted teaching would help support the personalised instruction for each group. Group 1, will consist of students close to meeting the standard, while (click) Group 2 will be made up of students who require further targeted and explicit support. 

Now that they have identified the areas of focus, Nikki visits the HSC minimum standard online resource to see if there are any relevant teaching activities available. She is looking for teaching activities she can use to improve the group’s understanding and use of text structure and sentence types when writing. 

Nikki selects Text Structure and Sentence Types under the writing domain on the resource. She identifies activities that will be useful for her students and begins to think about how she can modify the tasks to personalise the teaching to include Aboriginal perspectives to support her students. 

Nikki decides to follow the lesson sequence for both Text structure and Sentence types. She decides to change the texts to represent Aboriginal perspectives. She will select examples of both persuasive and imaginative texts based on student interest. She prompts students to look through the ‘Koori Mail’ to identify subject matter important to them including issues about Aboriginal people and communities prior to beginning explicit teaching. This helps inform her selection.   

Nikki uses her knowledge of the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning pedagogy framework. She supplements the resources with a graphic organiser to facilitate a culturally responsive approach in the classroom. Nikki focuses on drawing student’s attention to their connectedness to community through her visual and narrative driven learning approach.   

Nikki also works with the English faculty to ensure her selection of texts are complementary to the Aboriginal texts identified for study in English classes.    

Nikki and Allison begin the teaching and learning cycle by meeting with the group as a whole. They aim to build student confidence by allowing the group to share their cultural knowledge to foster positive collaboration prior to dividing the students into two groups. They begin with Activity 1 of Sentence Types, using a persuasive text on Uluru.  

Allison projects the text on the board. She uses a guided approach to text deconstruction. She begins by asking students to skim and scan the text to locate any specific information or key words. Using a think aloud she demonstrated how to gauge the overall purpose and audience of a text by identifying the structural features used. This will help students to unpack the different sentence types and paragraphs used to interpret texts and understand whether the text is imaginative or persuasive. They discuss the text as a class. She is pleased to see students are contributing to the cultural discussion.  

The class then revises the different sentence types that can be used in writing. Allison models’ examples of simple, complex and compound sentences using the information from their discussion on Uluru to guide her examples. She allocates different colours to each of the sentence types and ask students to work in pairs to highlight examples in the text. Students then create their own sentences drawing on their cultural knowledge to inform their writing and share their responses with the class. 

The group then move on to text structure, using Activity 1 of the resource. Nikki explains the organisation of texts contributes to how an audience reads and interprets information. They begin by brainstorming the features of persuasive texts. Nikki unpacks the information found in the introduction, body and conclusion paragraphs. She is pleased when students mention the PEEL paragraph structure which is part of the whole school approach to literacy. After revisiting the various components of PEEL, the class then highlight the different components in their set text. 

The students are then divided into their two groups and the explicit teaching of the identified skills begins with the support of the centre’s AEO Kerrilee. 

Working closely with group 1, Nikki notices students are producing accurate and detailed responses to the content and resources presented.  

She decides to use Activity 4 under Sentence Types ‘writing task’ of the resources to consolidate students’ skills. She uses the article ‘Never has there been a greater need for Aboriginal fire-stick farming’ as stimulus. She makes modifications to the resource by providing students with the opportunity to rewrite sections of the original article. (Click) She teaches students how to unpack the writing prompt and plan their response. 

Nikki asks students to assume the perspective of someone in the farming community and write from their experience. This allows students to draw on their own experiences and connect with the content being presented while demonstrating the skills being targeted. Once students have completed their piece of writing, she asks them to highlight the various structural components and sentence types used. This allows students to see what features they have included in their text and what needs to be edited to help refine their work. Nikki then guides students through the feedback criteria to check their response. She then evaluates the impact of explicit teaching by reviewing student responses using the NESA writing rubric to identify their level of achievement.  

Once students have edited their work, the group then share their response with a partner for peer feedback. 

Allison, Nikki and Kerrilee continue to support Group 2 by providing opportunities for guided and then independent construction. They start with persuasive texts. Nikki notes students require more explicit instruction to unpack texts and work with the resources, therefore she increases her level of scaffolding.  

Nikki creates her own scaffold by replacing the text and including boxes for student analysis and notes. She prefills some of the boxes identifying various sentence types and elements of the PEEL paragraph structure. As a class they discuss teacher choice while highlighting and breaking down the various components of the text. The teacher elicits further examples of sentence types and structural components. Students then receive a copy of Activity 3 ‘restructure the text’ and complete this in groups.  

Students discuss the use of various sentence types and their sequencing choices while justifying their responses with textual evidence. 

Nikki draws on the ‘Guide questions to assist with co-constructing a persuasive text’ Activity 2 of text structure to guide her teaching of persuasive texts. She modifies the text starters to align with the Aboriginal themes covered in this unit and scaffolds the various components needed to help students organise their ideas prior to writing. Using her scaffold, the class deconstructs the text starter to align with their cultural perspectives. They then brainstorm synonyms to link sentences and create a word- bank students can use throughout their writing.   

Nikki then asks the class to share their ideas on the topic. She can see students are engaged in a robust discussion and as a result of the varying ideas and perspectives she includes a section for students to offer their insight. Before starting the co-construction, as a class they decide which cultural perspective they will use to inform their persuasive text.  Students then structure their ideas into an analytical framework so they can visually see the various components of their response. Finally they use the PEEL paragraph template to jointly construct their response. 

Nikki is pleased that her more reluctant writers are attending all scheduled sessions. This is having a positive impact on their rapport and engagement in lessons. She can clearly see a correlation between students’ connectedness to the cultural content and attendance. 

Nikki repeats this process for imaginative writing, increasing her level of scaffolding to help students unpack the various components needed to construct an imaginative text. She notes her students require further guided support when planning their responses and decides to continue with scaffolded and co-constructed activities to support student readiness prior to attempting independent writing.             

The Aboriginal Learning and Engagement Centre staff are pleased with the progress their students are making. After 10 weeks of explicit teaching and focus on writing, they can see evidence of improvement in student responses, attendance and engagement. Their writing demonstrates the use of a variety of sentence types and improved use of structural elements appropriate to purpose and audience.  

They decide Group 1 is ready to sit a second practice test, however Group 2 will require further explicit support. 

To support student readiness, students in Group 1 are asked to review, edit and rewrite their scripts from the practice tests focusing on improvements to text structure and sentence types. Students then unpack improvements in their work, sharing their progress with their peers. 

Based on their evaluation and reflection, Nikki and Allison identify five students in Group 1 who are ready to sit the HSC minimum standard writing test. The explicit teaching of sentence types and text structure has supported students to develop the targeted skills.  

Students in Group 2 are continuing with support to develop the skills and confidence for the next steps to sit the HSC minimum standard writing test. While students have improved in sentence types and text structure the team identifies vocabulary and spelling as the next teaching priorities. Nikki explores the HSC minimum standard resource and the teaching and learning cycle begins again. She continues to monitor student literacy development to determine the appropriate time for students to sit the writing test.  

She also decides to work more closely with faculties across the school to synthesise the selection of resource used in the Aboriginal Learning and Engagement Centre to help enhance student skills rather than unpacking unfamiliar content.   

For more information on the HSC minimum standard online resource and further learning, visit the NSW DoE literacy and numeracy webpage.  

[End Transcript]

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students.  

Illustrations of practice model the use of the resource to prepare students to meet the HSC minimum standard in the context of teaching and learning in different KLAs in Stages 5 and 6. This illustration of practice shows an example of how the resource could be used to support the development of numeracy skills in a Year 11 Mathematics Standard class.  

Scott is a mathematics teacher with a Year 11 Standard class. The class is studying Interest and Depreciation and in this unit they will be focusing on applying percentage increase and decrease in various contexts, including GST. As part of this learning, students will be required to research and compare different products on sale.   

Scott begins the teaching and learning cycle in this unit by considering the skills students will need to be successful. He has been engaging with the National Numeracy Learning Progression to assist him in understanding and supporting students' numeracy development. He has identified that the sub-element of Proportional thinking in the Number sense and algebra element of the progression could provide useful guidance in targeting his teaching to meet students' needs throughout this topic. 

Scott's class of 20 students all completed the mathematics 5.1 substage in year 10 and many experienced challenges. He is aware that some students will require additional support to complete class activities and experience success in Year 11 mathematics. All of Scott's students attempted the numeracy minimum standard test at the end of Year 10 as they were believed to be ready, but only 5 achieved the required level 3. 15 students are yet to achieve the standard. Scott will monitor his students to determine their readiness to attempt the test again. 

For this topic Scott designs a research task in which students need to find the percentage discount for a range of items. The students will be required to calculate the discounted price of the products and then justify which product they will choose to purchase. Scott also asks students to calculate the GST of the items. He realises there is an opportunity for students to complete this task using Microsoft Excel which would also allow them to develop their technology skills.  

Scott looked at the minimum standard data from the HSC App in SCOUT and looked at the outcomes and focus area report. In this report, he was able to identify the students who had not yet achieved the standard for numeracy. He then analysed the item results for each of his students and was able to determine areas that required further support. He found that his students had experienced particular difficulty with items that assessed percentages.  

Scott also analysed previous classroom tasks which involved percentages. Using student work samples and classroom discussions, Scott discovered that items around the structural elements of percentages such as finding percentages as part of a whole and finding part of a whole as a percentage had room for improvement. Scott determines that he needs to target his teaching towards calculating percentages. 

Scott decides to create an Area of Focus in PLAN2, using the DoE HSC min std Numeracy Percentages template provided. He watches the "PLAN2 areas of focus: using templates" video available from the “Using this resource” tab in the HSC minimum standard resource. Scott learns how to access the existing DoE template for percentages and how to customize it for his class. 

Once in PLAN2, Scott selects Areas of Focus template library in the hamburger menu. He enters the details to access the DoE template for percentages. Scott then uses the template to create a customised Area of Focus for his class. He selects the students and the indicators relevant to their identified learning needs. He records information he has gathered about his students’ current capabilities in working with percentages. This gives him a visual snapshot of his students’ strengths and needs and allows him to target this teaching accordingly. He will then be able to update and track students' progress with percentages throughout the unit of work. 

Scott returns to the HSC minimum standard resource to select and adapt relevant teaching activities to meet the learning needs of his students. He wants to use the resource to support his students’ learning of percentages and ultimately help them achieve the HSC minimum standard for Numeracy.  

Scott goes to the Numeracy drop down menu and selects Percentages to view the documents. He can immediately see activities and ideas that will be useful for his students and begins to think about how he can adapt the resources to maximise the learning outcomes. 

After exploring the teaching and learning activities in Percentages, Scott decides to focus on Teacher Activity 2. This resource focuses on calculating percentages using a number of different strategies. Scott will need to adapt this resource to the activity so that students can learn to calculate percentages in the context of purchasing discounted goods. One strategy of the resource is using the bar model to understand and work with percentages. It helps students to visually represent a percentage of an amount and perform a range of calculations with this strategy. Scott found this strategy really useful and did some pre-teaching of percentages using the bar model. Once students grasped the concept he moved onto using percentage benchmarks and multiplication as an operator and made a connection between the different strategies. He then asked students to carry out the activity on Percentage discounts and sales.  

Now Scott hands out the class activity and he instructs the students to use the same strategy to complete the table. The bar for Beachside Electronics have quantities missing which the students work in pairs to complete first before finding the percentage discount. By working in pairs it allows students the ability to collaborate on ways to find the missing values. For Country TV’s, students need to translate all the given information on to the bar before using it to find the sale price. The completed bars are placed around the room for students to walk around and compare answers. This provides students the opportunity to have both peer and self feedback. Scott then has a class discussion on other ways of finding the percentages and he observes that the majority of his students have grasped the understanding using the bar model and progresses on to using multiplication to find the percentage of the quantity. He returns to his Area of Focus in PLAN2 to update these observations. 

Scott decides to use Student Activity 3: Percentage of quantities from the HSC minimum standard resource. It involves students matching percentage problems with their solutions. He adapts it by handing out blank percentage bars for the students to use as extra support if required and alters some of the scenarios to better suit the topic of learning. This activity is again completed in pairs to allow for collaboration and discussion. After completing this activity Scott is confident in the students ability to work with percentages and find percentages of quantities using a variety of different techniques.   

Scott reflects on his use of the resource and his teaching practice, identifying that the strategies were generally successful with his class. He noted that students’ engagement in, and success in the task increased significantly with a well-scaffolded and visual approach to calculating percentage of quantities as represented by the bar model. Scott also reflected that student pair-work, which provided opportunities for students to collaborate and communicate ideas and opinions, has proved successful for most students. This was especially noticeable in the matching activity where students enjoyed talking together to work through solutions, share strategies and learn from each other. 

Scott is pleased with the progress his students have made in calculating percentages. The focused numeracy work has supported most of his students to develop the targeted skills. He designs a follow up task of a similar nature for students to consolidate their learning.  

Scott is continually updating the class observations in PLAN2 and uses this to identify where students are progressing well and their ongoing areas of need in order to determine readiness for the HSC minimum standard numeracy test.  He identifies the students who need further assistance to develop skills in working with percentages and plans targeted small-group support for them.  

Scott prepares his next unit of work and refers to the Mathematics Standard syllabus, the National Numeracy Learning Progression and the HSC app in SCOUT to refine his next numeracy teaching focus. He identifies an opportunity to support student needs in Number and place value and make connections with the work completed on percentages. He explores the HSC minimum standard resource for activities on decimals and continues to adapt them for use with his class. The teaching-learning cycle begins again with this new focus, and Scott continually analyses student work to monitor their progress in numeracy. 

For more information on the HSC minimum standard online resource and further learning, you can contact the Literacy and Numeracy team by email at: literacy.numeracy@det.nsw.edu.au  or visit the Department’s Literacy and Numeracy webpage, accessible through the QR code or web address shown here. 

[End Transcript]

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students. They model the use of the resource for preparing students to meet the HSC minimum standard, in the context of teaching and learning in different KLAs in Stages 5 and 6. This illustration of practice shows how the resource could be used to support Stage 5 students with aspects of writing in a Year 10 History class.  

A HSIE teacher and the subject coordinator for Year 10 History, Rachel works at a large metropolitan high school. Her class is comprised of mixed ability students.  The class is currently working on Depth Study 6, a school-developed study of the Holocaust. This study supports learning for ‘The Modern World and Australia’ content. Students will be working towards completing a research assessment with writing component. Currently Rachel is reviewing the teaching and learning cycle while planning her lessons for the Depth Study.  

As a school priority writing will be focused on for improvement. Rachel ’s analysis of previous assessment tasks and student work samples reflected a need to support her students’ with ‘text structure’ in writing. NAPLAN data also showed that many of the current Year 10 group could benefit from more support in this area.  

Rachel decides to explore the online resource for the HSC minimum standard. She finds ‘Text Structure’ under the ‘Writing’ domain. Rachel reads through the activities and decides to use Activities 1 and 3 as they best support the needs of her students.  She adapts the activities for her class, by choosing articles that are contextual to her class study of the Holocaust. 

Rachel also realises this is an opening to add a writing scaffold to the current assessment to support targeted teaching.  ‘Activity 5’ is a persuasive writing scaffold and the students’ assessment includes a persuasive writing task. Using ‘Activity 5’ in this way means that she can support student learning at home as well as in the classroom.  

Rachel adapts ‘Activity 1’, choosing a persuasive news article titled ‘The importance of remembering the Holocaust’. The activity guides students to identify and annotate features of a persuasive text. Furthermore, the activity supports her students’ understanding of the persuasive text structure they are required to use in the coming assessment. Rachels aim is to build their confidence for when they write their own persuasive text.  The content of the article simultaneously provides students with research content for their coming assessment.  

‘Activity 3’ requires students to re-sequence the paragraphs from a jumbled text. Adapting this activity meant that Rachel needed to find and ‘jumble’ a text from the Holocaust topic. This activity will support students to consolidate and apply the knowledge about text structure they gained when doing Activity 1. The content of the text can also be used to support student research for the assessment task.   

Rachel ’s students work together to complete the activities.  They are engaged and the activities create group discussion about how the texts should be structured.  Rachel will be able to further assess student progress using this classwork, the assessment scaffold and the final assessment. She now has multiple opportunities to give her students feedback and support. The activities also provide students opportunities for self reflection.   

When Rachels’ students submit their work on Activity 5, the persuasive writing scaffold, she gives them timely feedback on where they did well and where they can improve. She notes areas across the class where students consistently needed further support. On final review of the students’ completed writing assessment task, Rachel realises that most of her feedback is about cohesion identifying this as her next teaching priority.   

Rachel evaluates the impact of her targeted teaching focus on text structure. Her observations of students and analysis of their work lead her to conclude that the focused lessons were engaging for students and have generally been successful in improving text structure in their writing. This improvement can support student in their learning and assessment in history, and will help prepare them for the HSC minimum standard writing test. Rachel notes any students who still require further support. 

She shares her work and experiences with her HSIE colleagues and embeds the resources in faculty programs and online folders in case they are useful to other teachers. 

Knowing that cohesion is her next teaching priority, Rachel explores the HSC minimum standard resource and the cycle begins again. 

For more information on the HSC minimum standard online resource and further learning, visit the NSW DoE literacy and numeracy webpage.   

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students.  

Illustrations of practice model the use of the resource to prepare students to meet the HSC minimum standard in the context of teaching and learning in different KLAs in Stages 5 and 6.  

This illustration of practice shows an example of how the resource could be used to support the development of numeracy skills in a Stage 5 Science class.  

Arya is a Science teacher with a Year 10 class.The class is studying a module from the Physical World outcome contained in the Knowledge and understanding strand in the K-10 Science Syllabus. They will be focusing on Energy transfer through different mediums. This also links to the Working Scientifically outcomes of Processing and Analysing Data and Information. 

Arya wants students to work scientifically and complete an activity on comparing insulators against heat loss in a particular environment. She refers to the syllabus and identifies links to the National Numeracy Learning Progression element of statistics and probability to inform and target her teaching. This classroom activity provides significant opportunities for students to focus on specific numeracy skills in working with data, in particular reading and interpreting tables, graphs and charts. 

Arya’s class of 24 students is a mixed-ability group, of which there are seven EAL/D students. Of the seven EAL/D students, two are on the Emerging phase on the EAL/D Learning Progression. Three are currently on the Developing phase while the remaining two are on the Consolidating phase. Arya gets occasional in-class assistance and support from Carlos, an EAL/D specialist teacher at the school. The class has a wide range of abilities and Arya is aware that some students will require additional support with subject-specific vocabulary and comprehension as this impacts upon students’ ability to complete class activities.   

The students are mostly in the same Mathematics class and Arya has spoken at length with the Mathematics teacher. Both agree that many of the students, in particular the EAL/D group, are struggling with the transference of numeracy skills from Mathematics into KLAs like Science.  

For this unit of work, Arya designs a classroom task that requires students to interpret results from a scientific experiment on how insulation is used to control the cooling of three different hot water samples. The data from the monitored samples is summarised using a table of values and students will graph the results for comparison.   

The students are required to read and comprehend the table of values and then plot a graph to easily compare the different materials used to control cooling of hot water in a particular environment. 

Arya recognises that there is a significant amount of vocabulary in the task that may require explicit teaching. She will have a professional discussion with Carlos to guide her next steps. Together, they review the task to identify the literacy and numeracy skills that students will require to complete this activity.  

To identify the specific needs of students, Arya looked at the Item analysis in the NAPLAN App in Scout for Year 9 Numeracy. She found that most of her students required further assistance in the NAPLAN items linked to the sub-element of Interpreting and Representing Data (IRD) of the Numeracy Progression.   

Arya has also analysed previous classroom tasks on tables, graphs and charts as well as diagnostic assessments and classroom observations. Using student work samples and classroom discussions, Arya discovered that items around the structural elements of graphing such as scales, labels of axes and determining the most suitable graph type for the data are some areas of concern. Arya is beginning to see that she will need to target her teaching towards reading and interpreting tables and graphs.  

For her EAL/D students, Arya consults with Carlos on how to best support their vocabulary and literacy needs, as informed by the EAL/D Learning Progression.  

Now that she has identified areas of focus for her teaching, Arya explores the HSC minimum standard resource to select and adapt relevant teaching activities to meet the learning needs of her students. She wants to use the resource to support her students’ learning in science and ultimately help them achieve the HSC minimum standard for Numeracy.  

In Data and Chance, Arya filters to the Tables, Graphs and Charts section to view the documents. She can immediately see activities and ideas that will be useful for her students and begins to think about how she can adapt the resources to maximise the learning outcomes. 

After exploring the teaching and learning activities in Tables, Graphs and Charts, Arya decides to focus on the Teacher Activity as shown.  

This resource focuses on reading and interpreting tables and a variety of graphs and charts. Arya will need to adapt this resource to the activity, so that students can learn to read and comprehend tables and graphs in any context.   

One aspect of the resource is using a specific strategy to help unpack a picture graph, known as the “See, Think, Wonder” routine. It helps students to visualise and comprehend the picture graph in layers (or stages), rather than looking at it holistically. Arya thinks that this might be a useful tool to help students read and comprehend the table and graph provided in the task.  

Arya is aware that for her students to be successful with their learning she will need to consider the literacy demands in conjunction with their numeracy skills. 

She works with Carlos, the EAL/D specialist teacher to identify the language and vocabulary needs for this task. Carlos annotates the table with Arya. She is overwhelmed by the amount of vocabulary that students need to access.  

They identify four groupings: 

In green is the numeracy and science vocabulary related to the column headings 

In black is the vocabulary used to describe elements and structure of a table of values. 

In red is the general literacy used to describe the data in the table and blue is the language used to interpret the data in context. 

Before Arya carries out this classroom task, Carlos leads a small group discussion with the EAL/D students on tables to address some of their immediate language needs. 

Arya then uses these when adapting the “See Think Wonder” routine to suit the learning needs of her students.  

The first activity is an adaptation of the "See, Think, Wonder" routine, adapted to "See and Think". Students, working in pairs, commence with a single column of data and are given time to consider and discuss what they see and how they think they could use this data. They record their ideas on large sheets on paper. The table is then extended, and each time another extension appears, this allows students the time to add-on to their ideas. For the EAL/D students this activity continues to develop from the earlier lesson with Carlos. The discussion time allows students a supportive language environment and Arya the opportunity to join in a discussion and provide science, numeracy and literacy support. At the completion of the "see and think" discussion students then present their ideas in a gallery walk, using post-it notes to comment and add-on to presentations, they then return and revise their work with their partner. This provides students with the opportunity to have both peer and self feedback. 

Arya then uses the "See, Think” activity again; this time with a line graph and her target is to have the students identify the importance of the structural elements used in graphs, such as horizontal and vertical axis labels and their units of measurement. 

This activity is again completed in pairs for supportive language development. Arya hides components of the graph and students are asked to discuss what they see and think the graph is telling them. She progressively makes more of the information, such as axis labels and later units of measurement available to the students.   

This allows her students to identify each new element and then reflect on how these impact their ability to interpret the graph. 

Now that students have learnt to read and interpret a table of values and decode graphs, the task requires students to plot the data from the table onto a line graph.  

The graph type has been specified for this task to scaffold learning, with a view to building students capacity to independently select the most appropriate graph types to display data in future tasks and provide adequate reasoning for their selection.  

Arya can see from the HSC minimum standard teaching resource that one of the teaching activities is to have students discuss different graph types. 

Using the table of values provided in the task, Arya generates a number of graph types using ICT for the class to discuss. Arya uses small group discussions to continue to support vocabulary development and numeracy concepts before students join a whole class discussion. Arya has developed intentional questions to support students understanding of the way data types inform graph selection and their ability to justify their choices.  

Once students were given the tools to help read and comprehend tables and graphs, Arya got the students to answer the questions given in the task. From classroom observations and collection of student work, Arya was able to identify areas that required further assistance. Arya reflected on her teaching practice and realised that students’ level of engagement in the task increased significantly with a well-scaffolded and structured approach to reading and interpreting tables and graphs, whilst factoring in the literacy expectations of the task.  

Arya’s idea of using the pair-share model to collaborate and communicate ideas and opinions has proved successful for most students. Arya identified that some students still require further assistance in reading and comprehending tables and graphs. She intends to work collaboratively with Carlos to provide ongoing support in her Science lessons.  

Arya is pleased with the progress her students have made in reading and interpreting tables and graphs. The explicit numeracy work, supported by the EAL/D language vocabulary tasks, show that students have developed the targeted skills.  

The activity around the structural elements of a graph was very engaging as it encouraged a lot of discussion and improved understanding of the different elements that describe a graph. As the "see, think" activity progressed students were able to read and interpret a line graph in this context. 

The class discussion regarding the most suitable type of graph indicated that students had some understanding, however, Arya feels that there is still need to continue developing concepts in this area. She designs a follow up homework task of a similar nature for students to consolidate their learning.  

Arya prepares her next unit of work and refers to the science syllabus to identify outcomes that link to the sub-element Interpreting and representing data (IRD) from the numeracy progression. She identifies opportunities to continue developing skills in this focus area by using and adapting the activities found in the HSC minimum standard resource and plans to analyse student work to consider both progress in numeracy skills in her subject area and her students’ readiness to sit the HSC minimum standard numeracy test. 

For more information on the HSC minimum standard online resource and further learning, you can contact the Literacy and Numeracy team by email at: literacy.numeracy@det.nsw.edu.au  or visit the Department’s Literacy and Numeracy webpage, accessible through the QR code or web address shown here. 

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students. They model the use of the resource to prepare students to meet the HSC minimum standard in the context of teaching and learning in different KLAs in Stages 5 and 6. This illustration of practice shows how the resource could be used to support EAL/D students with aspects of writing in a Year 10 English class.  

Eamon is a specialist EAL/D teacher. Alongside his work with other teachers, he currently teaches a Year 10 English class where all of the students are learning English as an additional language. The class has a wide range of abilities and language levels. They follow the English K-10 Syllabus and the same Scope and Sequence as the other Year 10 English classes in the school. 

Most of the students in the class have not yet achieved the HSC minimum standard in Writing. He has been engaging with the National Literacy Learning Progression and the EAL/D Learning Progression to inform and target his teaching, as he can use these to determine what students know already and what they need to learn next. He plans explicitly for this as part of the teaching and learning cycle. 

Eamon is currently teaching a unit on speeches, focusing on Kevin Rudd’s Sorry speech. The unit will culminate with the students writing and delivering their own formal apology on a topic of their choice. He will supplement his content teaching with explicit literacy learning drawn from by the HSC minimum standard resource. The resource will be used as a springboard for planning, allowing him to tailor targeted literacy work in curriculum context to the needs of his cohort.  

Eamon’s class cohort consists of two students on the Beginning phase of the EAL/D Learning Progression and five on the Emerging phase. Eight students are considered Developing while the remaining five are on the Consolidating phase. All in the group were born overseas. They have lived in Australia for between one and eight years.  

The group is comprised of two international students, twelve students of refugee background and six migrants. The students come from eight different countries. All of the refugee-background students have experienced some degree of disruption to education. Two of the refugee students had access to only informal and limited schooling before arriving in Australia. These are the two students in the class still on the Beginning language phase.  

The group gets on well and provides a supportive learning environment. Eamon is aware that there are known issues relating to trauma with at least two of the refugee students. Celebrating the class’s diversity and building on that supportive environment has been key in Eamon’s success with the group and will inform how he plans and carries out his teaching in this unit of work.   

Eamon uses a range of information to determine his students’ needs. For those more newly-arrived, he looks at their exit reports from the Intensive English Centre, including any writing samples. For the rest of the class, he looks at writing samples he has collected, analysing them against both the EAL/D Learning Progression and the ESL Scales. This allows him to pinpoint specific areas of strength and areas to target next for each student. It allows for detailed, EAL/D specific analysis and planning to occur.  

He now has individual- and cohort-level data that spells out what areas of the students’ writing development to focus on next.  

After analysing both formal and informal writing tasks, as well as looking at Scout data and indicators on the EAL/D Learning Progression and the ESL Scales, Eamon decides that explicitly teaching vocabulary as an area of focus will be key for his students moving forward. General improvement in the quality and breadth of vocabulary used in the students’ writing will assist in achieving the HSC minimum standard. Crucially, it will also assist with progress across KLAs as well as beyond school. 

A writer’s vocabulary is an important signal to the reader of the composer’s control of language and their level of knowledge, both general and topic-specific. Eamon knows from his data analysis that the depth of his EAL/D students’ understanding of a topic is often not properly expressed in formal writing, and that this in large part is due to limitations in their vocabularies.  

He looks online at the Vocabulary section of the HSC minimum standard resource. He can immediately see activities and ideas that will be useful with his cohort and begins tailoring the resource for maximum impact with his students.  

After exploring the ‘Vocabulary’ section of the HSC minimum standard online resource, Eamon decides to focus on Activity 4 (vocabulary map) and Activity 6 (Word cline). In both cases, the activities will be of immediate benefit in the students preparing to compose their own ‘Sorry’ speech. Eamon can also see how this work will build general literacy and be of benefit across the curriculum.    

The learning intention for Activity 4 states, ‘By the end of the activity, students will have a deep and thorough understanding of specific vocabulary, what it means and how to appropriately use it in context.’ As the students will need to both unpack existing texts and compose their own speech around the central theme of being ‘Sorry’, using a range of synonyms and related terms with nuance, this is an ideal activity to adapt.  

Eamon ensures that students are supported in moving from controlled, through guided and finally independent learning activities. He replaces the two examples in the existing Vocabulary map with terms that will be used in the unit of work. e.g. ‘speech’ and ‘mistake’. Students are given a map of the word ‘speech’ that is completely pre-filled and talk this through as a class, discussing the teacher’s choices while highlighting and breaking down new terms. The teacher elicits further examples to enrich ‘speech’. Students then receive a map of the term ‘mistake’, which is partly-prefilled. They complete this in groups or as a class.  

Students discuss in pairs how they would break down the word ‘Sorry’ using a vocabulary map. This oral work allows students to explore ideas, while simultaneously acting as a rehearsal for writing. It will also give Eamon an idea of who might still require support with the next activity.  

Finally, students independently create a word map of the term ‘sorry’. A scaffolded version of the vocabulary map is available for those students who need it (i.e. those on the lower levels of the EAL/D LP). This word map will be used when students later draft their own speeches.  

Activity 6 looks at vocabulary nuance and gradation through the use of a word cline. This will help students add variety and accuracy to their writing. The Learning intention for the activity states, ‘Students will learn about the nuances in vocabulary and how precise meaning can be conveyed when thinking about the precise meaning of vocabulary with similar meanings.’ This will of course be also tailored to the context of the class and their current unit of work.  

Eamon knows that the visual nature of a word cline will assist his students in comprehending subtle differences between related terms. It will also provide a useful word bank when students go to draft their own speeches. He leads the class in creating a simple cline, replacing quiet to loud with an example idea from Activity 4, e.g. ‘mistake’ contrasted with ‘intentional act’. 

Students create their own clines in pairs, based on images provided by the teacher. These clines will build on ideas being explored in the current unit of work. Eamon will encourage stronger students to find their own images for this task. The images that are used in the PDF are shown to students as an example. Students on the lower EAL/D LP phases will be given an image for each end of the cline. Those students can be given a word list as necessary. Stronger students will be encouraged to use a thesaurus to extend the range of their cline.  

Finally, each student independently creates a word cline contrasting ‘sorry’ and ‘not sorry’. Suggested terms are provided to students who require support. All students then add images along the cline to further illustrate nuances in the terms they have chosen. Eamon will provide a base range of simple images to scaffold this. This further visual reinforcement will support students when they later use their clines as references when drafting writing or revising their learning.  

To monitor student progress in this vocabulary work, Eamon uses the EAL/D Learning Progression and the ESL Scales. This, along with summative assessment notes taken throughout the unit, allows him to pinpoint both progress and areas to target next in terms of students’ English language development. He then cross-references his observations there with the Literacy Learning Progression. Vocabulary is included within and across sub-elements in the Literacy Progression, but Eamon focuses particularly on the Creating Texts sub-element of writing, where increasingly sophisticated use of vocabulary is signposted under the respective Persuasive texts indicators.  

Used in conjunction, these tools paint a vivid picture of student literacy and language development. They sharpen focus on which students require support in which areas.  

Eamon moves from this targeted literacy work towards the students drafting and presenting their speeches. The summative assessment here against English Syllabus outcomes will further enrich the observations he has already collected in this unit of work. This will then be used to plan and target further language and literacy development.   

Eamon is pleased with the progress his students have made in this area. The explicit literacy work underpinned the student’s speeches, where a wider and more precise use of vocabulary was evident in comparison with earlier writing samples. The students’ end of unit writing reaffirmed that many of them still have trouble maintaining consistent register in their writing, and making this, including all vocabulary choices, appropriate to audience and purpose. Their work also showed that all students would benefit from consolidatory learning on paragraphing and text structure. This was particularly true of those on the lower phases of the EAL/D Learning Progression.  

Based on his evaluation and reflection, Eamon makes the decision to focus next on text structure, followed by paragraphing.  

He accesses the HSC minimum standard resource and explores the activities in these areas. Using his recent data and observations, he begins further planning his next unit of work, which will culminate in students writing extended responses on the themes in Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. He adapts the HSC minimum standard resource section on text structure to explicitly embed this literacy focus.   

He is pleased with his students’ recent progress and expects that the focus on text structure, and later paragraphing, will help them further develop their literacy skills across the curriculum and achieve the HSC minimum standard.  

For more information on the HSC minimum standard online resource and further learning, you can contact the Literacy and Numeracy team by email at: literacy.numeracy@det.nsw.edu.au  or visit the Department’s Literacy and Numeracy webpage, accessible through the QR code image above. 

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students. They model resource use to prepare students for meeting the HSC minimum standard in the context of teaching and learning, in different KLAs, in Stages 5 and 6. This illustration of practice shows how the resource could be used in Stage 6 for a Year 11 English Studies class to improve aspects of writing. 

Amy is the teacher of a Year 11 English Studies class. Her class is comprised of mixed-ability students, most of whom have not yet achieved the HSC minimum standard in Writing. She is currently teaching the mandatory module: Achieving Through English - English in education, work and community. The students will focus on resume writing. Amy has been engaging with the National Literacy Learning Progression and is currently using it to inform and target her teaching. Amy begins the teaching and learning cycle in this unit by determining what students know already and what they need to learn next. 

Amy also analysed Scout data from the HSC minimum standard testing, noting that over half of her students achieved a Level 2 in the online writing test. On reviewing the HSC minimum standard writing scripts against the NESA writing rubric, she started to see a focus area emerge around the level of formality in students’ writing. Amy’s classroom observations support the information she has gained from the HSC minimum standard and class assessments. She has clearly identified a teaching priority around the appropriate use of formal and informal language. She plans explicitly for this as part of the teaching and learning cycle.  

By focusing on developing specific writing skills, Amy plans to target the literacy skills needed not only by her upcoming assessment task, but also helping equip students with the skills needed to achieve the HSC minimum standard in writing. She browses the HSC minimum standard resource and navigates to the activities within Formal and informal language.   

Exploring ‘Formal and Informal Language’ on the HSC minimum standard resource, Amy opens ‘Activity 3’. The learning intention for the activity indicates that students will learn to recognise formal and informal language, using a scale of 1-5 to identify and justify the degree of formality in a text. Amy recognises that this activity will teach her students the interrelation between formality, vocabulary, tone and other aspects of language. She adapts the PDF, changing some of the examples to reflect the current teaching module.  

Amy also decides to use ‘Activity 2’. The learning intention for this activity states that students will learn to use formal and informal language to convey meaning. Amy recognises that this activity builds on the previous activity by having students manipulate vocabulary, syntax and grammar within sentences, allowing them to understand how formality is created in texts. Similar to the previous activity, Amy adapts the PDF, changing some of the examples to reflect the current teaching module. Adapting the resource also means that she can observe student understanding of language used in resumes and can use this to determine if she needs to focus on topic vocabulary leading up to the assessment task, which requires them to complete a job application.  

Now that her students understand the difference between formal and informal language use, Amy extends that knowledge by using longer texts. For this she uses ‘Activity 4’. The learning intention for this activity states that students will learn to recognise the difference between formal and informal texts and how language is used within them. The activity provides an example of a formal and informal text with annotations, highlighting the use of language. Amy decides to adapt the PDF by giving the students a highlighted copy so that they are not spending their time locating the words and phrases which contribute to the degree of formality. She also adds two additional informal and formal texts - both are resumes. She extends the activity and asks students to evaluate the two resumes. She asks them to explain which resume would be more appropriate and appealing to an employer. She completes the lesson by using the formal resume with annotations as an exemplar then directs her students to write a draft resume.  

To monitor student progress, Amy uses the PLAN2 Areas of Focus Template and the class observation spreadsheet. These tools inform her of what her students already know and what they need to learn next, allowing her to identify areas of improvement and the students that still require additional support. She collects the draft resumes from her students then provides them with detailed feedback. Amy also uses these drafts to further assess their understanding. 

Evaluating and reflecting on the past few lessons, Amy can see an improvement in her students’ ability to distinguish between formal and informal texts. She can identify that students still have a developing understanding of the degree of formality as their draft resumes did not consistently use a formal register.  She notes that some students are struggling to substitute common, colloquial vocabulary with formal, appropriate synonyms. Analysing the data in PLAN2, she makes note that four students will need further support in understanding formal and informal language.  

Based on her evaluation and reflection, Amy makes the decision to focus on vocabulary use in informal and formal texts. She adapts the Areas of Focus template to reflect new indicators on vocabulary. Amy accesses the HSC minimum standard resource exploring the ‘Vocabulary’ content. With a new focus on vocabulary, she again engages in the planning and programming phase of the teaching and learning cycle by reviewing her program and the syllabus outcomes then embedding the resources where relevant. Pleased with the progress that her students have made Amy expects that the focus on vocabulary will help them further develop their writing. She knows her work can support student achievement across English Studies, other Key Learning Areas and the HSC minimum standard. 

Illustrations of practice are offered as a support for users of the HSC minimum standard resource. They provide examples of how teachers can select, adapt and use lesson activities to meet the varying literacy and numeracy needs of students. They model the use of the resource for preparing students to meet the HSC minimum standard, in the context of teaching and learning in different KLAs in Stages 5 and 6.   

This illustration of practice shows how the resource could be used to support writing for a group of Stage 6 students with disability and additional learning and support needs. It is important to note that the students in this illustration of practice are already supported through the process of personalised learning and support. 

 Jonathan is a Learning and Support teacher at a large metropolitan school in Western Sydney. He has been supporting a small group of four students in an ongoing capacity who have disability and additional learning and support needs  and have not yet attempted the HSC minimum standard in Writing.  

Johnathan and the learning and support team initiate collaborative curriculum planning for this group of students in preparation for the Writing test. As an initial step the team reviews the NESA Disability Provisions, Exemptions and Appeals Policy, and the NESA Guidance for schools from the NESA website when implementing Disability Provisions.  

The team considers the broader context of personalised learning and support these students receive including any adjustments and interventions already in place. In their planning the team considers the functional impact of the student’s disability in relation to demonstrating the HSC minimum standard. They also consider the level and types of adjustments the students may already be accessing for school-based assessment tasks, and decide whether an adjustment is necessary to ensure the students can access and participate in the HSC minimum standard online tests on the same basis as a student without disability.   

The team then consults with each of the students, and their parent or carer and develop a personalised learning and support plan.  

Through this process, the team has determined the disability provisions for each student, and agree to review student readiness at the Learning and Support team meeting upon completion of the unit of learning. 

The following Principal approved provisions have been agreed upon:   

Johnny has a specific learning disorder with impairment in reading (Dyslexia). Poor decoding skills impacts reading rate, comprehension and will require extra time to complete the task. He will receive 5 minutes of extra time per 30 minutes.  

Anthony has been diagnosed with Muscular dystrophy. He fatigues easily due to weakness of the muscles, restricted flexibility of the joints and reduced endurance. He will receive 15 minutes of extra time per 30 minutes, a 10 minute rest break per 30 minutes and will be provided with a typist, Sally the laboratory technician to help support him to complete the writing test in the allotted time.  

Dominic and Helen both have a diagnosed Language Disorder (expressive and receptive difficulties). They have difficulty understanding instructions, expressing and organising thoughts and will require time to identify the right language to use in the online test. They will be provided with 5 minutes of extra time per 30 minutes. 

The team, now confident with the disability provisions, task Jonathan to start focusing on personalising the instruction for the test preparation to ensure the students are set up for success.  

Using the Teaching and Learning cycle to help shape his programming, planning, teaching and assessment, Jonathan begins with the question 'Where are my students now? 

He begins by gathering a range of information to help determine areas needing more targeted instruction. He meets with the student’s teachers noting teacher observations, previous NAPLAN results and gathers curriculum-based assessments and work samples in writing. He analyses these writing samples against the NESA Writing rubric and Writing Achievement Level Descriptions for the HSC minimum standard test to pinpoint areas needing targeted teaching for skill development.    

Jonathan notes from his data analysis that students are predominantly using simple sentences in their compositions and are neglecting the use of compound sentences which limits the depth of expression needed to achieve a Level 3 in the Writing test as identified in Writing Achievement Level Descriptions. He determines that explicit teaching of sentence types as an area of focus for the group will support the students to improve their writing. General improvement in student's use of different sentence types may enhance the quality of their writing. 

Jonathan shares analysis of the data with the Learning and Support team and his plans to support the group with targeted instruction. He considers this process as evidence for NCCD consideration. 

To support his targeted teaching with this group of students, Jonathan decides to create an Area of Focus in PLAN2, using the Department of Education’s HSC minimum standard Sentence Types template provided. He goes to PLAN2 and selects Areas of focus template library tab from the hamburger menu. He searches sentence types to bring up the template. 

Johnathan then uses this template to create a customised Area of Focus for his students. He selects his group of 4 students and the indicators relevant to their identified learning needs. He records information from the work samples and observations he has gathered. He and the students’ teachers will then be able to update and track students’ progress with sentence types throughout the targeted teaching cycle. 

Now that he has identified a focus for his targeted teaching, Johnathan visits the HSC minimum standard online resource to see if there are any relevant teaching activities available. He is looking for teaching activities he can use to improve the group’s understanding and use of sentences types when writing. 

Johnathan selects Sentence types under the writing domain on the resource. He identifies activities that will be useful for his students. He begins to think about how he can adjust the tasks to personalise the teaching and learning to support the needs of his students to help prepare them for the online test with the agreed upon disability provisions. 

In his planning, Johnathan considers what curriculum and instructional adjustments he can apply to support the personalised learning and support needs of the group.   

Jonathan makes the following adjustments: 

Firstly, he decides that any presentations and all tasks will be delivered in a digital format to ensure he is preparing students for the typing demands of the writing test. This may help to alleviate any anxiety students may have in the online testing platform.  

Activity 1 of the online resource is a teacher led task where an explanation of the different features of simple, compound and complex sentences is outlined. Students use this knowledge to highlight the different types of sentences in a passage. Johnathan unpacks Activity 1 into segments where he will teach each of the different sentence types individually. He adapts and scaffolds the resource to include additional teaching and learning material on each sentence type, prompting students to create sentences based on stimuli to demonstrate meaning in different contexts. 

 Activity 2 of the resource requires students to identify the different sentence types which have been placed in a table and explain how they determined their answer. He adjusts Activity 2 by replacing the sentences with excerpts of text students are currently studying in English to ensure the focus of the activity is on enhancing sentence awareness rather than unpacking unfamiliar content. Johnathan decides to complete the task over a sequence of lessons where he will explicitly teach through the process of modelling, joint deconstruction and joint construction.  

 Johnathan also ensures that he is providing opportunities and tailoring activities for guided and then independent practice as students gain proficiency and understanding of concepts and skills. He adjusts Activity 4 which is an independent writing task by embedding a planning section into the writing prompt to help students identify the meaning they wish to create and the sentences they could use to support their writing.    

Prior to explicit teaching, Jonathan reviews the ‘Typist Instructions for the writing test’ in detail to ensure he understands the requirements as Anthony will require this provision.   

There are a number of key points in this document that are brought to his attention:  

Firstly, the sentences ‘This student has approval for a typist. The student understands and agrees to the rules of using a typist’ must be typed at the beginning of the test document in the online writing test.  

Secondly, a spelling list of 10 words, in accordance with the six -guideline stated, must also be included in the response field of the screen for spelling to be assessed.        

And finally he notes, ‘If NESA finds the typist rules have not been followed, the test results will be cancelled and the student will be required to re-sit the test. 

In preparation for targeted support Johnathan ensures Sally, the designated typist, is aware of these instructions and the guidelines are accurately followed. He ensures Anthony has ample opportunities to practice working with Sally to become familiar with the noted instructions and for Anthony to feel safe and comfortable with Sally. 

Using the resources he prepared, Jonathan works with students to explicitly teach the targeted skills over the next 5 weeks. In his delivery Johnathan is clear about the purpose of each task. He motivates students through engagement with their personal interest, providing additional, explicit and systematic instructions as he teaches students to elaborate on their simple sentence to create compound and complex sentences.   

He encourages students to discuss their responses, and drawing on texts students’ are currently studying in English, directs their focus to the various sentence types used in writing. This oral collaboration allows students to explore ideas, while simultaneously acting as a rehearsal for writing.  

Jonathan provides additional modelling and guidance in his practice for those students who require additional time to create compound sentences, while providing students with corrective and reinforcing feedback.  

During the targeted teaching, Johnathan also ensures he is explicitly teaching the students test taking conditions and time management skills. He implements the agreed upon provisions and ensures that he tailors instruction to each student to mirror the provisions they will receive in the online HSC minimum standard writing test.  

He also explicitly teaches Anthony the requisite skills needed to manage his rest breaks and provides time for him to practise working and communicating with his typist.  

Johnathan and the students’ teachers continue to use PLAN2 to record their observations. He is also able to see curriculum teachers have recorded student progress and have reflected on the teaching and learning cycle.  

Johnathan meets with the student’s teachers collectively and they all agree that there is a marked improvement in the students’ ability to construct sentences and recognise meaning. Johnathan and the classroom teachers also recognise, however, that improvement in overall readiness is still needed and the PLAN2 data indicates Helen requires further explicit instruction to consolidate her knowledge and use of a variety of sentence types.   

Johnathan is pleased with the progress the students are making with sentence types and decides it is time for the group to attempt Activity 4. He continues to work with Helen independently, providing further explicit teaching to help her with compound sentences.   

In his preparation to support students to attempt this activity, Johnathan explicitly teaches students to unpack the writing prompt.     

He further scaffolds the various steps needed to unpack, select, plan and respond to the writing prompt. Again, he delivers the content in a digital format.  

He visits the NESA website and selects a sample HSC minimum standard writing question and script. Together, Jonathan models the process of selecting, brainstorming and planning a response. He then annotates and highlights the writing sample with students, identifying different sentence types to consolidate their knowledge. They then jointly construct a response using one of the groups brainstormed ideas.   

He models the use of a variety of sentences and uses the think aloud strategies to demonstrate effective writing process. He also provides time for rereading and editing work while providing corrective and reinforcing feedback to support students writing.  

Finally, students independently complete Activity 4 with the agreed upon provisions. Anthony works with his typist, Sally.  

Reviewing the writing scripts from Activity 4, Jonathan notices a marked improvement in Anthony’s writing and decides, with the support of the Learning and Support team, to enrol him in the practice writing test.  

In preparation for the test Johnathan must apply the approved disability provisions for Anthony prior to scheduling his practice test code. This will ensure he receives the requisite provisions in the online testing environment.    

Johnathan visits Schools Online to enrol him in the practice writing test before he is able to apply the agreed upon provisions. He begins by selecting Anthony’s name on the left-hand side of the screen, then saves the nomination.  Johnathan notices the word ‘Apply’ now appears under the ‘Apply Disability Provisions’ section on the screen.   

He clicks on the word ‘Apply’ and the online disability provisions screen appears. He enters the correct information for Anthony, ensuring he only selects the approved provision of rest break, and typist with extra time. He then enters the requisite information about the nature of the disability on the basis of which these provisions have been approved. Johnathan then selects ‘save’.   

Confirming the provision has been entered, he can now see a green tick appear under the heading ‘Disability Provision Applied’. He will repeat this process for each of his students when they are ready to sit the practice test, again ensuring he selects the approved provisions.  

Once Anthony has attempted the practice writing test with the support of his typist Sally, Johnathan decides it is time to review all the data including teacher PLAN2 observations. He collects and takes this information back to the Learning and Support team to decide on the next steps. The team is pleased with the progress the students have made with sentence types. The explicit teaching of sentence types has supported students to develop the targeted skills.  Johnathan and the team decide that Anthony is ready to sit the HSC minimum standard test in writing. Dominic and Helen are not yet ready to attempt the writing test, and will require more targeted and explicit teaching. 

Jonathan revisits the teaching and learning cycle asking Where are my students now? and based on analysis of current writing samples, determines the next teaching focus.       

He explores the HSC minimum standard resource and the teaching and learning cycle begins again. He continues to monitor student literacy development and writing skills to determine the appropriate time for students to sit the practice test. 

For more information on the HSC minimum standard online resource and further learning, visit the NSW DoE literacy and numeracy webpage.