Over the next few days students will be sitting their asTTle and PAT tests in reading, writing and maths. This year we are using e-asTTle which is the newer version of asTTle and is on line, so it is instantly marked and teachers have the results almost immediately. We also use PAT tests to give a rounder picture. It is from these two and some other assessments throughout the year that you can judge how your child is measuring against the national standards.
Frequently asked questions
Q: What is e-asTTle? A: e-asTTle is an online assessment tool, developed to assess students’ achievement and progress in reading, mathematics, writing. asTTle was first developed by Auckland UniServices in 2000 and enables teachers to create and analyse literacy and numeracy tests for curriculum levels 2–6 ( about school years 4-10)
Q: What does e-asTTle do? A: It gives teachers a realistic picture of how well each student, class, or school is doing compared to the national average and the curriculum levels. It allows comparisons with other groups such as gender, ethnicity, English as a second language, or 'schools like mine'.
Q: What is good about PAT and asTTle - some of our primary schools don’t use these. A: Most Colleges and Intermediate schools use them because they are nationally “normed” across all New Zealand schools. This means that our children are compared with students from over the country in high, middle and low decile areas. It is really easy especially if you have been in a school for a while, to forget what level children in other schools achieve at. When I was working in a private school years ago my teacher friend and I would swap pieces of children’s writing which we had marked. She taught in a lower decile school and worried that she was giving high results for perhaps pieces of writing that did not compare well with some of mine. We had a lot of fun arguing over what made a good piece of writing and it was good for us both. (This is called moderating these days). So PAT and asTTle tests, being normed referenced, do this for us - we can’t lose sight of the work produced by other children in New Zealand.
AsTTle in particular shows us how your child compares with other children in New Zealand and you will see this in the report that each child gets to put in their personal portfolio following testing.
Mrs Fletcher, our principal, addressing the new students.
