Three schools from NSW were announced as Excellence Award-winners at the National Literacy and Numeracy Week National Awards Ceremony on Friday 26 August.
2005 Excellence Awards ($10,000):
BelmoreBoysHigh School
Belmore Boys’ High School is a secondary boys’ school located in inner western Sydney. Since 2002, the school has developed a unique literacy/pedagogy program that has resulted in dramatic improvements in external literacy assessment between Years 7 and 9. The program follows a systematic pedagogy of modelled, guided and independent teaching stages. This has culminated in significant externally-verified longitudinal improvements for the same cohort of students. As a result of these highly successful initiatives, the school has been selected as a professional learning school for an innovative pre-service teacher education trial between the University of Western Sydney and the NSW Department of Education and Training.
BishopDruittCollegePrimary School
BishopDruittCollege, located outside the provincial city of CoffsHarbour, is an independent Anglican school with an enrolment of 400. Since 2003, a professional development program has been implemented to model learning for the school community. It specifically addresses identified students’ writing needs. Staff training, re-structuring of the timetable and regular meetings have offered opportunities for development and change. Success from the approach has resulted in the raising of the percentage of students in the two top bands of the Primary Writing Assessment. A further achievement has been the support to the broader education community through the College’s web site, articles in professional publications and presentations at education forums.
St Mary’s Primary School, Rydalmere
St Mary’s Primary School, located in metropolitan western Sydney, has an enrolment of 345 students. Three years ago, an analysis by staff determined that there was a significant lack of uniformity in classroom practices across K–6 and within grades. The commencement of the Reflection, Empowerment and Learning in Mathematics strategy stimulated a three-year whole-school professional learning program to improve learning in Mathematics and develop teaching practices. Parents were surveyed and as a result, information nights were held with demonstration lessons being conducted. Parental participation in some lessons as helpers has lead to an increase in staff morale as well as student results. The BST in numeracy results have improved and the whole-school professional learning module has been successfully transferred to share learning in other curriculum areas, such as assessment and literacy.
On Monday 29 August, the Hon Carmel Tebbutt, Minister for Education and Training presented the NSW awards. The Awards Ceremony was held at the ANZ Conservation Theatre at Taronga Zoo to acknowledge the three NSW Excellence Award-winners and twelve other schools with Highly Commended Awards.
The following schools received Highly Commended Awards for their literacy and numeracy initiatives in improving the learning of students in their schools:
2005 Highly Commended Awards ($5,000):
BethanyCollege
CallaghanCollege, Waratah Technology Campus
CentralCoastAdventistSchool
CurransHillPublic School
EppingWestPublic School
GlendaleEastPublic School
MurrumburrahHigh School
St Francis De SalesCollege
St Raphael’s Primary School, South Hurstville
TenterfieldHigh School
UrallaCentralSchool
WangeeParkSchool for Specific Purposes