Intervention and Additional Support Programs @ MSC
Melton Secondary College is committed to ensuring every student achieves success in their learning. The college offers additional support in Literacy and Numeracy across year levels 7-10, and has six programs running throughout 2022 to cater to student needs.
Students are identified as needing extra support through a variety of ways including: OnDemand testing, NAPLAN data, semester reports, teacher judgement, and levels of engagement throughout the remote learning period.
Additional support is driven by student learning needs and Intervention programs at the college are facilitated via small-group learning to maximise impact. Current research suggests that small-group learning offered through focused, regular sessions, is a clear evidence-based approach for improving student learning outcomes in a timely manner. The pedagogical teaching practices of differentiation, personalisation and student-centred learning are the foundation for the specific interventions delivered as part of the additional support offered at Melton Secondary College.
Tutor Learning Initiative
The Victorian Government has continued its funding of the Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI) in 2022. This initiative is designed to address the continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning and engagement in Victoria.
This is part of the largest initiative in the state's history to provide students with extra targeted support, with $480 million being invested to allow this program to run in schools throughout 2021 and 2022.
The extension of the initiative will allow MSC to continue to provide our students who need it most with targeted TLI learning support in the 2022 school year.
This year, the college has employed five tutors who join and strengthen the already-existing Intervention programs at MSC, which allows us to reach many more at-risk and vulnerable students across the school.
A wide range of data is used to identify and monitor the progress of students participating in the Initiative, which encompasses both an in-class and small group withdrawal focus for students in need of extra Literacy and Numeracy support.
Despite the continued challenges MSC and schools across Victoria have faced in the past two years, the TLI has helped ensure that students, who may have fallen behind or become disengaged, receive the help they need.
Melton Secondary College would like to thank all the tutors, teachers and families who were involved in supporting MSC’s TLI program in 2021. We look forward to continuing the TLI program in 2022, to provide small group learning support that will enable our students to flourish now and in the future.
Middle Years Literacy and Numeracy Support (MYLNS) initiative
The MYLNS initiative provides intensive teaching support to government secondary school students who are at risk of finishing school without the Literacy and Numeracy skills they need for future work, education and training.
This initiative seeks to support and build on the work that schools are already doing to improve Literacy and Numeracy outcomes for all students, by providing additional teaching support to prioritised students as part of a whole-school approach.
The intended outcomes of the initiative are to:
- improve targeted students’ Literacy and Numeracy achievement to agreed standards
- support teachers to confidently teach Literacy and Numeracy to all students
- support and contribute to embedding a whole school community approach to improving Literacy and Numeracy achievement for all students.
In 2022, MSC has four teaching staff working with selected students as part of the MYLNS initiative.
Guided Reading and Multilit
Guided reading is an instructional practice where Tutors support a small group of students to read a text independently.
The practice of guided reading is based on the belief that the optimal learning for a reader occurs when they are assisted by an educator, to read and understand a text with clear but limited guidance. The teacher/tutor guides or ‘scaffolds’ their students as they read, talk and think their way through increasingly challenging texts.
Guided Reading allows students to practise, consolidate and internalise effective reading strategies which assist decoding and construct meaning; in turn, this allows students to experience success in reading and understanding more difficult texts across all learning areas.
Students are organised into groups based on similar reading ability, which is determined through analysis of assessment tools such as standardised testing results, running records, reading conference notes and anecdotal records.
The Multilit program is delivered to some of our most vulnerable, struggling readers; these are students who are reading at a Prep-2 level. MultiLit is an explicit and systematic reading intervention program developed to cater for older low-progress readers. It provides a comprehensive sequence of lessons that includes all the key components necessary for effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.
An average of seventy students every term work with our six Literacy Intervention staff and Tutors in the Guided Reading and Multilit programs.
Numeracy Support
In 2022, the college has opted for an in-class Numeracy Support model, which forms part of the school’s ongoing commitment to meeting individual student needs in Numeracy.
Our current program entails designated students working in focus groups alongside Numeracy Intervention staff. Through data conferences, personalized student goals are set, and explicit feedback is given. Opportunities are provided to consolidate the use of efficient strategies of concepts underpinning the work to be covered in class.
The aim of the targeted focus groups is to identify student strengths and areas for improvement in mathematics, while building on existing skills and knowledge to keep students engaged, motivated and empowered to achieve at a higher level. Ultimately, students gain confidence in their ability to independently approach more challenging content.
