Pukekohe Intermediate is a mid-decile school rural south of Auckland. They are in their second year of trial with PR1ME, and are using it in such a unique and innovative way, that they have easily shattered the assumptions that PR1ME is too prescriptive.
PR1ME is currently being trialled in two learning communities at Pukekohe Intermediate. In the Ngata community, they are interweaving PR1ME, and high level Assessment for Learning strategies to deliver tailor made mathematics learning, with almost complete student ownership.
It all starts with a pre-test. Having created a raft of interactive Google Documents (that are very complicated to describe) the learners analyse their own test, and highlight what learning intentions they need to achieve. Conveniently, PR1ME tells them in what book each intention is covered which means the learners now have a comprehensive and individualised list of what they need to cover.
Working across their four classes, the teachers host workshops on various PR1ME objectives, which the learners sign up for, and attend, as they require through the Google Docs that are the backbone of this approach. On these same documents, the teachers can keep formative records, and track their students’ progress. It is a very robust and innovative system that helps cater to the individual learning needs of the students at Pukekohe Intermediate.
Esther Williams, Mathematics Lead teacher at Pukekohe intermediate described how well it is going for them “The structure of PR1ME is really what allows us to de-construct it in this way.” “The children know what they need to learn next, as it’s in their books, and they can sign up for it as they need to, they can spend more time in the home room if they need more practice with a concept before moving on.”
A recent evaluation of Pukekohe Intermediate’s workshop teaching has shown spectacular growth in student engagement; 83% percent of their leaners now say they are motivated to do maths, up from 68% with one student commenting, “The workshops help everyone and that makes me feel like there are other people struggling on the same things as I am, so I don’t feel alone.” Further, 94% of their students enjoy PR1ME, with one saying that they love “being able to independently work on PR1ME Maths…and to be able to work on a learning goal of our choice.”
After 12 weeks of workshoping, the learners have now had an opportunity to re-assess, and measure their progress, completing the inquiry cycle. Going through the same process they did at the start, they spent time looking at their new results, and picking out their new learning goals. Most have already started planning their next learning path and have already booked into next terms workshops! The results of this trial have been nothing short of compelling, for example, in Term 1, 50% of their learners identified “To identify a fraction by a whole number” as a learning goal. Now only 12% have that goal.
Esther continued “Our Year 8 extension kids are well onto level 5 mathematical concepts. For a few of them, we help ensure the depth of their understanding by letting them host workshops.” “The children love it, they have complete understanding of their learning needs, and complete ownership of achieving them. We teachers are still spending time with small groups and with materials, but the children choose when they need to be a part of the group that we are with.”
Esther finished by saying “I think you would struggle to find another learning community that has done as much maths as us in these last 10-12 weeks, or four single cell classrooms working like an ideal modern learning environment, while still having all their walls!”
