Two teachers from Cobar Public School (CPS) recently spoke at a state conference about the excellent results CPS’ infants students have recorded with the ‘Early Action for Success’ (EA4S) program.
EA4S is the NSW Education Department’s strategy for implementing the NSW government’s State Literacy and Numeracy Plan.
It aims to improve students’ literacy and numeracy skills through a targeted approach in the early years of schooling.
Relieving Assistant Principal Simone Knight and Instructional Leader Cheryl Lee represented CPS at the state conference, which attracted 425 school and state office representatives.
Mrs Lee said since joining the EA4S program in Term 3, 2013 CPS has been collecting data to help them to monitor and track the students’ progress.
“Our school has been recording excellent results in numeracy over the course of the EA4S strategy,” Mrs Lee said.
Three years ago when they entered the EA4S program 91.5 per cent of CPS Kindergarten students had reached the exit level by the end of the year; the figure in Year 1 was 52 per cent; while in Year 2, 73 per cent of students had reached the exit level by the end of their school year.
“Recent data (end Term 3 2016) indicates that Kindergarten are holding at 90 per cent, while Year 1 has shown a massive 40 per cent improvement (to 92 per cent) and Year 2 has shown a very healthy 18 per cent improvement (now 91 per cent),” she said.
Over the two day conference Mrs Lee said participants heard from EA4S leaders about the progress schools have made over the past three years, their plans for the recruitment process for the next phase, and the future directions for the EA4S strategy as it moves into Phase 2 next year.
“The findings were extremely positive and highlighted that an early intervention strategy has made significant difference to student outcomes enabling schools to embed best practices that are reflective of current research,” she said.
At the conference a number of individual schools shared their successes in numeracy, writing and comprehension with CPS the only western school in the state (other than Uralla, near Armidale) to be selected to make a presentation.
