Students are individuals who learn at different rates and in different ways. These individual differences may influence how students respond to instruction and how they demonstrate what they know, understand and can do. Through differentiated planning and programming, teachers can consider students’ varying abilities, learning styles, interests and needs.  – NESA - Differentiated programming

Scout provides a number of information reports which can assist teachers in establishing the literacy and numeracy needs of their students.

The Student Results by Item and Student Results by Element reports can be found in the Best Start Year 7 app.

Student Results by Element report

The Student Results by Element report provides individual results for a selected student in the cohort who had participated in Best Start Year 7. This report presents a tornado chart, item map and table data with learning progression level and syllabus information and whether the student selected a correct response for Best Start Year 7 assessment items.

Use the report to:

Identify areas that individual student’s strongest areas and where they may need additional support.

Key questions

If a student has demonstrated low/high levels of performance against English/Mathematics Syllabus
outcomes, what is the impact on their learning in my subject area?

Focus: Student results in relation to Stage Outcomes

1. Open the Student Results by Item report (found in the Best Start Year 7 app).
2. Choose an Assessment Type for your initial focus. Choose the student. Focus on the section Students % Correct by Stage.
3. Select a Stage from the left-hand panel. Sort the table at the bottom by clicking the arrow on the Correct column.
4. Repeat this process with the other Assessment Type.

Consider

• How has the student achieved against English/Mathematics Syllabus outcomes? If the student
  is low against Stage 2 or Stage 3 outcomes, or high against Stage 4 outcomes, how will that be impacting their capacity to engage with course materials?
• Where the student has answered incorrectly – how does that skill relate to your subject area?
  How does that skill support students to access and respond to content?

Focus: Students' Year 7 NAPLAN results

1. Open the NAPLAN (DoE) App.
2. Choose either ‘Online Item Analysis’ or ‘Paper Item Analysis’ from the left-hand panel. A further list will drop down. Select ‘Student’.
3. Ensure you have chosen the relevant information from the drop downs at the top of the page, including the focus student.
4. Click on a specific correct or incorrect question – this will be reflected in the information below. Investigate the Syllabus codes and Item descriptions of the chosen question.
5. Section: Item difficulty by assessment and response correctness:

Consider

At what point of difficulty did the student begin to incorrectly respond to questions?

Triangulating the data

• What are the similarities between the student’s performance in NAPLAN and Best Start Year 7?
• Are there similarities in the student’s correct or incorrect answers as compared to Best Start Year 7?
• How might these skills be impacting on the student’s capacity to engage with content in my class?

Once you have the data

You can then use this information to determine areas of literacy and numeracy support required for this student. In order to accurately determine a student’s overall skill, knowledge and understanding, we recommend using Scout data in conjunction with internal data sources.

Where to next?

You can access resources, information and support relating to Secondary literacy and numeracy instruction here:

DoE Literacy and numeracy professional learning: Secondary

CESE Publication: How schools can improve literacy and numeracy performance and why it (still) matters.

You can access resources, information and support relating to individualised student instruction here:

DoE Personalised support for student learning

Online Training Australia: Understanding personalised learning and support

Evidence for Learning toolkit: Individualised instruction