Duration: 2:19
Transcript
Thomas Murray, Principal: We're a Grade 7 to 10 high school in Devonport in Tasmania in the north of the state. And we have a population of about 550 students here, and a pretty mixed demographic of students.
Danika Hess, Assistant Principal: As a school we're really intentional upon teaching intervention and what intervention is to staff, students and parents in our community. So, when we first started intervention for our whole school, we actually spent time with our group of teachers that teach the intervention and the students for them to understand what intervention looks like, what they were intending to learn and why.
Sarah Elliot, Advanced Skills Teacher: Our interventions are structured on our prioritised curriculums. So, we spent a lot of time identifying what we thought were priorities for students; so, things that students must know.
Anne Thomas, Quality Teaching Coach: Tier 1 is what every student gets, and that's based on the Australian Curriculum. That happens in their basic classrooms. Tier 2 is what we would call intervention, and during that period of time, we would swell to, sometimes, double the number of staff that we would have during core curriculum time. That enables us to be very targeted with the groups that we have. Then over and above that, we have what we call Tier 3, which is where, if students are well below their reading age, they would work one to one with a teacher.
Sarah Elliot: I think some of the key reasons for the success of our intervention structure is the evidence that we've had of student learning. Our data over the last couple of years since its inception has been quite impressive – so much so that other schools come to us to ask us what we do.
Daniel Franks, Assistant Principal: The data that we saw in the first 6 months was amazing. So, we had kids that we could really clearly show our staff, our students, our families that, 'Okay, in 6 month's time, this student has grown 4 years in their reading.' And we had a number of students that had that much growth in 6 months from this Tier 3 intervention program. Seeing the growth in the students and seeing it in a really explicit way – whether it is data or whether it's through conversations in students – how could it not be rewarding?
Keywords: multi-tiered system of supports