CURRICULUM/TEACHING AND LEARNING

GROWTH ENHANCEMENTS AT GREENVALE SECONDARY COLLEGE

At Greenvale Secondary College we acknowledge at that not every child’s journey through learning is the same. Every student has areas of strength and potential growth, and there are different paths to every learning destination. Research suggests that intervention in the areas of English and Maths is particularly important during the transition between primary and secondary schools. As the intellectual demand of the content increases, challenges with literacy and numeracy can inhibit a student’s ability to access the new levels of knowledge. The work done in Years 7 and 8 to fill gaps in these areas can set the “trajectory” (Balfanz, 2002) of a student through Year 9 and beyond into Senior Secondary.

As part of our Enhancement program, we aim to augment classroom learning through Growth English and Maths. These Enhancements run each term with a different group of students. The selection and learning sequence is based on research into effective intervention:

1. identifying students at risk for difficulties through universal screening;
2. determining students’ instructional needs and forming similar-ability, small groups
3. providing explicit targeted instruction, and
4. aligning instruction and content levels to students’ needs.
   (Vaughn, Denton and Fletcher, 2010).

In Term 1, Year 8 students have participated in the Growth Enhancement program. In English, there has been a focus on reading skills, including identifying implicit and explicit meaning, understanding inference, and strategies to deal with unknown words using affixes and root word etymology. The texts read have included stories for pleasure such as fairy tales and fables, and chapters from upcoming lessons in subjects such as Humanities. Growth Maths students have emphasised ‘quick maths’, practicing mathematical operations in situations applicable to real life such as counting change in a shop. This practice of fast mental maths also aids students in the classroom as they are able to apply the operations in finding solutions to problems they encounter as part of wider topics in the Maths lessons.

Families of Year 7 students who qualify for Growth Enhancements will be contact shortly about your child’s participation in this program for Term 2.

Balfanz, R., McPartland, J., and Shaw, A. (April, 2002). Re-Conceptualizing Extra Help for High School Students in a High Standards Era. Baltimore: Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/hs/balfanz.doc

Vaughn, S., Denton, C. A., & Fletcher, J. M. (2010). WHY INTENSIVE INTERVENTIONS ARE NECESSARY FOR STUDENTS WITH SEVERE READING DIFFICULTIES. Psychology in the schools, 47(5), 432–444. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.20481