Key Competencies, Assessment and Learning Stories: Talking with Teachers and Students

Keryn Davis, Jocelyn Wright, Margaret Carr and Sally Peters: Key Competencies, Assessment and Learning Stories: Talking with Teachers and Students NZCER Press, Wellington, NZ, 2013, 62 pp (Softcover plus DVD), ISBN 978-1-927151-89-1

I am an enthusiast for using learning stories in primary schools however my efforts to integrate them into my own practice-and to convince colleagues to embrace them-have yielded limited results to date. Key competencies, assessment and learning stories is the very tool I have needed for this campaign. Accordingly I have shared my copy with colleagues who also happen to have the education of my daughter in their hands-clearly a strong endorsement given such high stakes, though made with the few minor caveats as outlined below.

This resource for teachers is designed to answer common questions and promote professional conversations about using learning stories to assess the five key competencies outlined in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education 2007). For the most part it achieves this purpose. Learning stories are a key tool for assessing children's learning in early childhood education (ECE) settings in New Zealand. They have the potential to make a positive, material difference for learning at school, however, they are not yet widely used in this context. Professional learning leaders in primary schools would undoubtedly find this resource valuable for getting started with learning stories. It delivers rich content with material cohesively drawn together from research and practice contexts and presented in a format that is both engaging and accessible. The resource, comprising a workbook and DVD, is organised into five workshops each centred on...