Learning

PLTs - Term 3

Thank you for your engagement during last semester’s inquiry cycles. This term, PLTs will independently conduct their own inquiry using the FISO improvement cycle. 

To support your inquiry and responsive teaching, here is a reminder of our Jackson Formative Assessment strategies (click right to see each strategy). We are continuing to improve our whole-school summative assessments and use of data, which you can use to monitor student learning and wellbeing growth over time. Some of these data sets are already available in Student Maps.

We can start to see all assessment in schools as formative if we focus on the question “what is the purpose of the assessment?” A form of assessment traditionally understood as ‘summative’, such as a test, can be formative if the teacher uses what they learn from the students’ test results to modify a lesson plan to revisit a topic previously covered because they identify gaps in their students’ understanding. Used alongside a set of clearly defined and challenging learning intentions, formative assessment is continuous feedback that allows a teacher to evaluate impact and a student to move their learning forward. (Dylan William, 2011).

VTLM Guides

All Victorian government schools are expected to begin implementing the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model (VTLM) 2.0 from 2025 and to have it fully embedded in their teaching and learning programs from the start of the 2028 school year. 

To support this, we have published guides that set out strategies and practices for the VTLM 2.0's 'Explicit teaching' elements of teaching.  

Please use the guides to help plan implementation of the VTLM 2.0, and share the guides with teachers. You can download the guides from Arc. 

The guides are informed by consultation with education experts, regional staff, teachers and school leaders. They: 

• articulate the evidence-based teaching strategies and practices within the VTLM 2.0 
• include practical examples of classroom techniques and activities for each VTLM 2.0 element of teaching
• support teachers’ reflection on current practice and planning to gradually embed the VTLM 2.0 in their teaching and learning programs.  

Planning

• Lead a whole-school curriculum approach
• Develop and deliver quality curriculum materials
• Enact a Multi-Tiered System of Supports

Enabling learning

• Inclusive learning
• Cultural responsiveness
• Positive Classroom Management Strategies (PCMS)
• Enable student self-regulation and self-efficacy

Explicit teaching

• Focus the learning
• Explicit explanation and modelling
• Scaffold practice
• Monitor progress

Supported application

• Vary practice
• Revisit and review
• Apply learning and build mastery

For more information, refer to the revised VTLM 2.0