A team of 85 subject advisors from all nine provinces gathered at the DBE, Sol Plaatje House from 25-27 May 2015, to learn how best the Annual National Assessment (ANA) Data usage programme could be implemented in schools across South Africa. This team is expected to assist with the implementation and support of the training of teachers in their respective provinces.
The Learning and Teaching Support Material (LTSM) Policy Development and Innovation Directorate, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and JET Education Services, has developed the Annual National Assessment (ANA) Data Usage Programme targeting Grades 3, 6 and 9 Mathematics subject advisors and teachers with the provision of resource materials and training. The resource materials show how assessment data can be utilised in a manner which will inform improved teaching.
ANA was put in place by the DBE as a strategy to annually measure progress in learner achievement in Literacy and Numeracy. ANA targets Literacy and Numeracy because these have been found universally to be the key foundational skills for successful learning in school and beyond. The tests are administered in all the eleven official languages in the foundation phase and in the two languages of teaching and learning in the Intermediate and Senior Phase. Necessary adaptations are effected for learners who experience various kinds of learning disabilities to ensure that every learner has the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities during the assessment.
This is a most critical undertaking as indicated in the ANA diagnostic reports, which point to areas where individual teachers need specific support in terms of effective methods of facilitating learning. The resource materials have therefore been developed to build the capacity of teachers to analyse the ANA and other tests in order to identify typical errors made by learners and to, thereafter, select appropriate teaching strategies to correct these errors and improve the teaching of Mathematics. They give precise and useful guidelines with regards to the accurate identification of the challenging content and conceptual areas shown through the errors, and use these to create opportunities for learners to improve their mathematical abilities.
The programme comprises the provision of a guide for subject advisors and teachers on the following: how to analyse errors in ANA and other test data and use these to improve teaching and learning and the presentation of various teaching strategies which teachers could use to adapt their teaching in order to address deficits evidenced in learner responses to items in the ANA. The title of the resource material is “Using Learners’ Responses to inform the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics: Resource Materials Based on the Annual National Assessment (ANA)”.
To add more value to this programme, an External Evaluator, Khulisa Management Services has been appointed to assess the effectiveness of the programme in improving the knowledge and skills of subject advisors and teachers in conducting error analysis in Mathematics and to adapt teaching practices, while also highlighting areas that require improvement. The DBE plans to use the results of the evaluation to strengthen the programme before taking it to scale and replicating it for Literacy and Language. The programme’s key aim is to equip subject advisors and teachers with essential skills to analyse ANA and other tests data as well as use the results to adapt teaching in order to address deficits in learning.
Ms Ingrid Sapire, Senior Researcher at Wits University, who has been contracted to manage and coordinate the development of the programme, said that the workshop was meant to give substantial examples of error analysis of ANA items to inform teaching.
In his address, the Deputy Director-General for Teacher and Professional Development, Mr Temba Kojana highlighted that the ANA Data Usage Programme has been developed to arm teachers with the critical skills for utilising ANA data formatively. “This intervention is part of a basket of initiatives aimed at improving Mathematics and ensuring that our children receive the learning experience they deserve,” he said. “We could not have chosen a better day to place the African child at the heart of our efforts for positive change. What better way to celebrate our continent, than to recommit ourselves to championing meaningful freedom for her children? So ladies and gentlemen, with quality learning outcomes for our learners in mind on this Africa day, join me in saying, Halala Africa,” said Mr Kojana during the opening ceremony of the programme which coincided with the commemoration of Africa Day.
“These initiatives will, however, be in vain if they do not reach each and every targeted teacher in the classroom. It is in this light that I am pleased to present this programme to you, the subject advisors, as you are the interface between the system and the teachers. The children of this country need your support to take up their cause. Training and supporting teachers is not an easy task, but I know that you are up to the challenge and I thank you for that. The Department will do everything in its power to support you,” the DDG concluded.