Last Wednesday, I split my time between Woodville High School and Allenby Gardens Primary. I was assisting large numbers of teachers at both schools to assign ESL Scales. It is encouraging to see this important work being shared within schools and not just considered to be the "work of the ESL Teacher". Assigning accurate ESL Scales allows the school to have confidence in this data to better allocate resources and track student progress. It also builds teacher capacity in terms of language. Typically teachers only have to be involved in the scaling process for a couple of times before they realise that this sort of language needs to be explicitly taught not just assessed. At Woodville High ESL, English and Science teachers were involved. At Allenby Gardens the whole school seemed to take part. The school has long seen the value in regularly assigning ESL Scales and not just to their ESL studnets. Each term they assign ESLScales to all their students as another way of tracking student progress.

Indicators of when scaling is working well in a school include:

• having an agreed and documented process
• identifiable leaders of the process
• support for staff to undertake relevant training
• release time to complete some of the scaling
• a colleagiate approach to assigning Scales
• some form of internal moderation
• an easy process for recording the Scales and sharing them with others.

During the week, I also prepared for the next meeting of the group writing the Yr 8 English Genre Project. Individual writers have been creating drafts of various resources that will be discussed by the whole group tomorrow. There is interest from central office about the group presenting the final resources at the Literacy and Numeracy Expo in August.
I also used the time last week to continue to organise Thursday's training session about the needs of refugee students and their families and the some of the services available to them. Registrations have been slow but I am confident it will still be a valuable session for those who are able to attend.
Today, I re-worked Session 3 from Tactical Teaching: Reading so that it is more aligned to the widespread understanding of genres and text structure in DECD schools. Many DECD teachers already have a deeper understanding of the topic than that presented in the TTR course. I have also taken the opportunity to align it the Australian Curriculum Literacy General Capabiliy elements (e.g. Gramar Knowledge). This is a more rigorous and relevant framework than the one promoted in the orignal course.

Hello again. It is nice to be acknowlegded once in a while. The Literacy Secretariat recently obtained some data about its website. It makes very interesting reading. For the year ending April 2012, the site had about 77 000 visitors who viewed 214 000 pages. 67% of the visitors were from Australia. No surprise but there were 8 000 visitors from the UK, over 2 000 from each of the USA and Japan and even 151 from Pakistan. Obviously they come for different reasons but the work of the ESL team features very highly in regards to what they took from the site. The three top downloads were all created by the ESL team! Over 6 000 visitors downloaded the Persuasive Writing resource paper. About 3 000 took the Procedural Writing and Explanation Writing papers. Many other ESL resources were also downloaded in large numbers. If you are yet to visit the site yourself go to www.decd.sa.gov.au/literacy/
Despite the work of the ESL team being in demand, corporate salary cuts have been announced. At yesterday's ESL Team meeting the recommendations of the review was presented. The review acknowledges that those positions to be cut are simply those whose tenure is first to expire. Therefore, one of the two ESL psychologist postions will finsh at the end of this school term. There has not been a 50% reduction in the number of new arrivals with psychological needs. The other recommendation is that two of the eight ESL consultant positions not be re-advertised for next year. These are primarily the people who created the most popular resources on the Literacy Secretariat site as well as other resources and training and development to meet the needs of 12% of the students in ECD schools. This is unlikely to be the end of the changes because these cuts will also be followed by a round of "1 in 7 cuts" and then another round of cuts in response to the recent state budget. The ESL team may be very small by the time all these cuts take place.
In the meantime schools are in the midst of assigning ESL Scales. It is rewarding to see so many teachers becoming more familiar with language in this process. This "backdoor" literacy training enables some teachers to then begin explicitly teaching the language that makes their students' work more written-like.

I have started delivering what will be my last training about how to assign an ESL Scale. On Tuesday afternoon I presented the first part of this training to teachers at Underdale High. I'll finish it this Tuesday. I still have a couple of sessions to come about moderation of ESL Scales but I am very much looking forward to using the new document from next year. Ten years is a long time for any curriculum document to last. Over the next couple of weeks principals will be asked to decide if their school wants to take part in the trial of the new document in week 4 of next term.
Tuesday was also the first meeting of the writers of the joint regional and Literacy Secretariat genre project. We used a unit planner to decide what we the desired results, the links to the Australian Curriculum, what would be evidence of student learning, success criteria and how students will reflect upon their learning. As you can see from this sequence "backwards design" is one of the underpinning principles of our curriculum writing. Other resource to be developed over the next few weeks are a year planner, a teaching and learning cycle, an assessment rubric, a student checklist, an annotated model text and an example of a lesson plan. This is ambitious but the writers are keen to develop ample useful teacher-friendly resources.
Australian Curriculum was also the theme of this term's Secondary ESL Teacher Network meeting on Wednesday evening. About 20 teachers were introduced to the AC Literacy Continuum and its links to the document that will replace the ESL Scales. They also investigated the Year 7-10 part of the AELD Teacher Resource and considered its use in schools.
"Refugee Week" will be celebrated in late June so I have been organising a session for Thursday 21st June when teachers and leaders can view relevant resources and listen to a couple of outside agencies speak about what they think are the needs of refugee students and the services they provide for this group. Look out for the flyer in the next couple of days!
Thursday I was one of a dozen or more who participated in a training session with Dr Peter White from the University of NSW. The focus was conjunctions. As usual it was highly informative and has implications for how we support students to successfully compose certain genres. In the near future there may also be an announcement of a very exciting proposal involving both the university and DECD.

Hello again. Last week I attended the regional staff meeting. Items included a report from the Aboriginal Turn Around Team about how they work with some of the most disconnected families in the community. They are having successes with families including school aged children that the children's schools and other regional services have not been able to connect with despite their best efforts over very long periods. Some of the success is no doubt a result of the relatively small number of families the team works with and the resolve and hard work of the three team members. As I listened to them recount some cases and the plight of family members I wondered if some refugee familes might benefit from a similar approach. Perhaps the new configuration of DECD will enable a small team of social workers and CLOs to be formed to emulate the work of the Aboriginal team.
I also visited Findon High to work with the assistant principal to write IELC plans for two students who started there this term. The information that is provided by ASSOE about students deemed to be potentially "at risk" when they move into the mainstream includes their strengths and interests. At Findon HS this was helpful because it allowed us to write plans that linked students to existing school or VET courses.
On Thursday I meet with Simmone Retallick from Underdale High to plan a whole school training session about the Australian Curriculum. It appears that secondary schools are at different points along their introduction to and planning for the teaching and reporting of Phase 1 subjects next year. In UHS's case the situation is less sure because they are currently deciding if they will teach AC or IBMYP. Regardless of which they use, the school sees some value in making their staff aware of some general approaches like backwards design, identifying literacy demands in assessement tasks and explicitly teaching these as part of a teaching sequence.
The rest of my week was spent developing some resources for the upcoming secondary ESL network meeting and ESL Scaling and moderation at Underdale High and Allenby Gardens Primary. I also developed a draft primary genre map that others working with Sandy Deam, RCC, can use as part of the genre resources they are creating for the region. Never a dull moment!

Hi remember me! It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted an update of my activities. I am still enthusiastic about the blog but I am been extremely busy. In the week starting Monday 7th May I worked with the other secondary ESL consultants to plan the next network meeting for secondary ESL teachers. The focus is Australian Curriculum. It will be at EDC Hindmarsh from 4-6 pm on Wednesday 30th May. Email me ross.hamilton@sa.gov.au if you want more details or to register. Other highlights of the week were delivering TESMC Module 6 at Brompton Primary, running regional ESL Scales moderation and attending the ESL consultant meeting. Along with the other members of the ESL Program I gave my input into the corporate review of the program. In brief, three salaries will have to go to offset the continuation of free travel to some new arrivals students. A decision is likely in the next couple of weeks. If I was a betting person, I would not put any money on there still being eight ESL consultants even as early as the start of next term.  The "1 in 7" cuts to salaries that all government departments are supposed to make is still to come so the ESL Program may be very small. I think that the consultants while perhaps a bit unsure about their own personal circumstances are most concerned about how the program will still deliver the same service to regions, sites and teachers with a significant cut in salaries. Stay tuned.
Last week began with a meeting of WASMYLLN where I outlined the joint project between the region and the Literacy Secretariat. Four WASMYLLN members each representing a different secondary school were indentified to be the writers of a unit of work for Year 8 using Australian Curriculum: English. As well as a unit plan they will also produce a task sheet, assessment rubric, student checklist, annotated student text and a teaching and learning sequence. They have a busy term ahead.
The rest of last week I was in Whyalla. I worked with most of the staff at Whyalla Town Primary School so they could begin to assign ESL Scales to all their students. I also provided ESL Scales training to five teachers at Edward John Eyre High and between 25 to 30 teachers from seven other local primary and high schools. I also had the chance to work individually with eight EJEHS teachers to develop their ability to explicity teach some of the literacy demands in senior secondary subjects like PE, Design & Technology, Art and IT.

Since the start of term I have delivered TESMC Modules 4&5 at Brompton Primary as well as meeting with the leadership at Kilkenny Primary to start planning the delivery of TESMC at that site during Term 3. This will allow teachers ample time in last term to implement and share their learning from the course.
This week I was part of an SSI Review Team that visited a school to provide them with some commendations and recommendations primarily about the teaching and learning of literacy. While this three day visits feel long and very intense, they do allow for opportunities to converse with and observe staff, parents and students. Part of the role of a review team member is to maintain confidentiality, but I think I can say that it was a pleasure to be a guest in a school that tries so very hard to deal with the complexities of their changing cohort. Typically some of the recommendations result in me be invited back to work more closely with the school as they begin to address those recommendations about ESL students and parents.
Yesterday I attended the region's senior years curriculum committee meeting to give an update about achievements and developments in ESL that relate to Year 10-12 students. It also gave me an opportunity to promote some of the presentations at the Regional Literacy Fair that took place today.
It was attended by about 160 primary and secondary leaders from almost every school in the region. Each school had a static display that featured at least one aspect of their literacy work. During the hour given to view these I probably saw a thrid of them. While they adressed a wide range of literacy topics and approaches typically they were evidence or research based and part of a school school approach. Many also featured the terminology, resources or processes developed by the Literacy Secretariat including the ESL Program. Those who organised the day and presented can be very proud of their part in a wonderful event.
My modest contribution was to give deliver two sessions. The first was an introduction to the ESL Literacy Levels and their alignment with the literacy continuum in the Australian Curriculum. In the other session I gathered feedback from school leaders that will help shape the development of a regional genre map and accompanying teaching resources.

After a very nice break, I am now at the end of my first week back at work and even with schools still on holidays it has been busy. The Western Adelaide Regional Director, Brendyn Semmens, is proposing that I would be one of several people to work with a group of teacher and coordinator representatives from secondary regional schools to develop some literacy resources (eg Yr 8-10 units of work in Science and English that are aligned to the Australian Curriculum and include a focus on literacy). The project would be supported, at least finacially, by the Literacy Secretariat. If this project is approved, and it appears likely that it will in some form, I will keep you informed of it's progress during 2012.
In fact, the Australian Curriculum has been a constant theme in all my work this week. On Monday, I developed an activity to run at the end of TESMC Module 5 that allows teachers to see the links between what they have learnt in the first five modules and literacy in both the AC: English and AC Literacy General Capabilty literacy continuum.
On Tuesday, most of the ESL consultants and Bev White from Catholic Ed met again for a full day to continue the editing of the draft ESL Literacy Levels. While we made some suggestions to the writer, Bronwyn Custance, about the placement of some of the language features and examples at certain year levels, even at this stage, the document as a whole is a logical and sufficently detailed resource.  I am very confident that it will have application beyond just the teaching and assessing of ESL students. Principals doing SPALL should find it of particular interest because it uses the AC literacy continuum framework.
On Wednesday, I put together two PowerPoints that I will present at the Western Adelaide Regional Literacy Fair at AAMI Stadium on 4th May. The first topic is Functional Grammar in the Australian Curriculum and the other is The ESL Literacy Levels. The connection with AC is evident in the first title. As mentioned above the AC literacy continuum provides the framework for the ESL Literacy Levels. After the fair, I will inform you when these PowerPoints go up on the regional website.
Yesterday, I was one of about 30 tutors of TESMC and/or How Language Works to undergo a familiarisation of the new Language for Learning course. It uses many of the activities and resources in TESMC with the exception of those specifically related to ESL students and some of the work around the functional model of language, the teaching and learning cycle and the register continuum. Activities about the literacy demands in the AC have been included. Subsequently the course has only 6 modules. This is likely to have a significant impact on the future number of TESMC courses run in schools. Many schools, particulary those with few ESL students, will likely opt for the shorter L4L course.
Today, the Literacy Secretariat and QIE had a joint staff meeting. The ESL consultants appreciate these opportunities to hear from and work with staff based in Central Office. Bronwyn Parkin's session concisely explained the AC literacy curriculum and how it would influence the work of all at the meeting, because the Lit Sec has been given the brief of supporting schools to incorporate the literacy continuum into AC Phase 1 subjects and over time all AC subjects.
Finally for this post, there are a couple of personnel issues that may effect your work. Firstly Lina Scalfino will be on leave until July so enquiries about the management of the ESL Program should be directed to Karyl Martin in Lina's absence. I should soon be able to let you know who is backfilling Karyl. Also you may be aware that travel to primary IELCs has been reduced as a way of reducing expenditure. However, for very good reasons, some travel is still being funded by the ESL Program. This has meant that the projected budget savings have not been achieved so the additional savings will need to be paid for by cutting salaries in the ESL Program. These will NOT be school based salaries but rather corporate salaries (ie ESL staff in Central Office or regional offices). An outside consultant has been employed to recommend which postions will be cut. Again I will try to keep you updated about this, because it will be an enormous challenge for the ESL Program to deliver the same level of service with reduced staff.