2A:How to achieve success in teaching, training and learning

Effective planning of sessions is crucial if teaching literacy, numeracy and language skills is to be successful. After careful initial assessment to identify a learner’s long-term goals and to establish a starting point for teaching literacy, numeracy and language skills, good providers develop an ILP that prioritises short-term goals for each learner.

Developing the individual learning plan

The following extracts from two ILPs show the goals set for two learners, Angela and James, in relation to literacy, numeracy and language skills.

SAMPLE ILPS

Angela

View Angela's ILP

James

View James' ILP

Session planning

Where teaching is most successful, sessions are planned carefully to include objectives for literacy, numeracy and language skills alongside objectives for other personal, social and subject-specific skills that have been prioritised in each learner’s ILP. Each member of staff, including, where appropriate, those who work with the learner in the residential accommodation, then plans his or her session to enable the learners to address the objectives within their ILPs.

An effective session plan specifies the aim of the session, the objectives for each learner, the content, the resources and the activities to be used. Good providers ensure that, where possible, teachers involve support staff in the planning of sessions and share the session plan with them so that the support staff are clear about their role in helping learners to achieve the individual objectives prioritised for that session.

At the end of each session, staff review the session with the learners, where appropriate, and take into account comments from the support staff. They then evaluate the progress that learners have made in relation to their individual objectives for that session. This information is noted and used as evidence of progress and to inform the planning of the next session.

Evaluating progress and setting new goals is an integral part of the learning process in successful provision.

The following extract from a session plan lists the literacy, numeracy and language objectives that the teacher has planned for Angela and James as part of a visit to the local swimming pool.

SAMPLE SESSION PLAN

Angela

View Angela's session plan

James

View James' session plan

Where teaching literacy, numeracy and language skills is most successful, teachers incorporate opportunities for learning these skills into real and relevant activities that make sense to the learner.

For example, teaching money skills is taught by taking learners shopping to purchase small items such as a magazine, a canned drink or a bottle of shampoo, or by using a local café where learners have the opportunity to use real money.

Toni is weighing out some sugar using scales and metric weights. She is using laminated cards to help her weigh out the correct amounts. She is working at Entry Level 3 (curriculum reference Mss1.E2.6: Read, estimate and compare weight using common standard units).

Activities reflect the interests and experiences of the learners and care is taken to ensure that each learner is set tasks that provide him or her with an appropriate level of challenge.

Lisa is filing students’ files in the filing cabinet. She is working at Entry Level 3 (curriculum reference Rw/E3.4: Use first and second place letters to find and sequence words in alphabetical order.

The following examples from a specialist residential college for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities show how staff have used opportunities within different sessions to address the literacy, numeracy and language goals in learners’ ILPs.

Daily living skills

Creative learning

Physical pursuits

Within successful provision, careful consideration is given to the learners’ long-term goals so that staff can identify which skills, including literacy, numeracy and language, they should prioritise within their learning programmes. It is important that the learner’s ILP states the long-term goal that the learner is working towards and that short-term goals are set in relation to this.

The following examples show the literacy, numeracy and language objectives that have been set for two learners, Danny and Will, within the context of their long-term goals.

Danny

Danny is working at milestone 5 of the pre-entry level curriculum. He has very good practical skills and would eventually like to work in a garden centre.

View Danny's ILP extract

Will

Will is a learner with complex learning difficulties who is also working at milestone 5 of the pre-entry level curriculum. His long-term goals are to communicate his needs, likes and dislikes and to experience new activities.

View Will's ILP extract

Assessment and monitoring

Successful providers view the assessment and monitoring of learners’ progress as an integral part of the learning process. Effective pre-entry assessment procedures are essential in order to identify effectively the support needs the learner have on entry. It may, in some cases, involve the use of specialist assessment such as speech and language therapy. Good practitioners ensure they have sufficiently detailed pre-entry information to make appropriate accommodation to the learning environment and resources, and to ensure that appropriate levels of support are in place when the learner starts. Initial assessment on entry provides the learner with a baseline profile that is the starting point for developing his or her literacy, numeracy and language skills alongside other personal, social and practical skills. In good provision, there is a clear link between a learner’s baseline profile and the goals in his or her ILP.

A range of commercial initial assessment tools has been produced for both the adult core curricula. To use these effectively, staff need both the skill and experience to confirm that the resulting level is an accurate reflection of the learner’s ability in absolute terms, rather than the difficulties they may experience in completing the assessment. Learners on the autistic spectrum, for example, may not understand the purpose and process of assessment, nor be able to calculate, out of context, a sum which if presented as part of their everyday lives, they could easily compute. Learners working on basic counting to 10 will find it easier to demonstrate their emerging skills when using real objects that they can move, as opposed to a 2-D representation. So good practice for these learners will involve, wherever possible, observation of skills in context.

Conducting effective assessment

Formative or ongoing assessment is used to ensure that learners’ progress towards the literacy, numeracy and language goals prioritised in their ILPs is regularly monitored and recorded to provide evidence of achievement. Summative assessment is undertaken at the end of a set period or at the end of each short course. The purpose of the summative assessment is to draw together information from all staff about the progress a learner has made over the designated period of time towards the literacy, numeracy and language goals in his or her ILP. This progress is measured against the learner’s baseline profile and provides evidence of the ‘distance travelled’ by the learner from the time he or she entered the provision. A good question for staff to ask themselves at this stage is, ‘What can the learner do now that he or she could not do at the start of the programme?’

Good provision pays careful attention to the use of tense to support the effective identification of new learning and skills. The language used in summative reports will typically include statements such as ‘can now’, ‘has learnt to’, and ‘is now able to’ in order to differentiate between existing skills and the development of and practical application of new ones. The use of carefully selected examples, contrasting current levels of skill with skills on entry, will further support the picture of distance travelled.

The following extract from a summative literacy, numeracy and communication report shows how one specialist college captures the progress a learner has made. The literacy, numeracy and communication coordinator has used information from a range of subject areas to give a picture of the skills acquired, across the curriculum.

SUMMATIVE REPORT EXTRACT

View the summative report extract

The example below is a numeracy baseline assessment for a learner in a specialist college. The outcomes of assessment has been used to help identify long- and short-term priorities.

NUMERACY BASELINE ASSESSMENT EXTRACT

View the numeracy baseline assessment extract

If the records from a learner’s previous placement indicate that he or she has made little progress in acquiring reading, writing or numeracy skills, staff use the initial assessment period to identify whether or not the learner has the potential to develop in these areas. This enables them to match the learner’s literacy, numeracy and language programme to his or her specific needs. For example, if the initial assessment indicates that a learner does not have the potential to develop reading, writing and numeracy skills, staff devise programmes that focus on the development of the learner’s speaking and listening skills in order to improve his or her ability to communicate effectively.

PREDICTIVE ASSESSMENT EXTRACT

Ryan

View Ryan's predictive assessment extract

The outcome from this assessment indicates that within his literacy, numeracy and language programme, priority should be given to the development of Ryan’s communication skills.

Some learners may be working at a pre-intentional level of communication. For these learners, behaviours are a response to a physical experience such as pain, hunger or thirst, rather than a deliberate action intended to, for example, garner attention. Effective staff work closely with the learners, observing them and then responding to their behaviours as if they were communication. As learners move from pre-intentional to intentional communication, staff develop learners’ understanding of communication by modelling.

Rebecca

View Rebecca's predictive assessment extract

Where the predictive assessment shows that learners can make progress in all aspects of literacy and numeracy, it is important to establish during the initial assessment process whether or not they understand some of the basic concepts they will need for successful future learning. If, for example, a learner is working towards milestone 4 of the adult pre-entry curriculum framework (curriculum element: Speaking and Listening, curriculum sub-element: Listening and Responding) and he or she does not respond to a simple instruction such as, ‘Put three red apples into the bag’, the teacher needs to know why the learner does not respond in order to plan future work. Is it that he or she cannot count to 3, does not know the colour red or has no concept of ‘into’? Successful providers pay attention to such details in order to match their teaching to the learner’s specific needs.

The following example shows the information that a provider gathered during the initial assessment process about a learner’s understanding of basic concepts.

SAMPLE ASSESSMENT OF CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING

Stuart

View Stuart's sample assessment of conceptual understanding