Literacy at OBHS

By Kate Hope | Posted: Thursday February 29, 2024

Effective literacy skills are essential for young individuals to achieve their academic, social, and vocational aspirations.

Nonetheless, there exists a noticeable gap between boys and girls in literacy proficiency. In New Zealand, mirroring global trends, girls consistently outperform boys in literacy assessments. At Otago Boys' High School we recognise the pivotal role of literacy in boys' academic performance across diverse subjects. From 2024, to be awarded an NCEA qualification, students need to achieve a 20-credit corequisite using the new Literacy and Numeracy standards. Aligning with these requirements, our school wide goal is to have a proactive approach to equipping our students with the necessary tools to excel and to become confident and competent readers and writers.

This year, students from Years 10 - 12 are using an AI computer programme called ‘Writers Toolbox'. Writer's Toolbox is an educational writing programme powered by patented AI. Designed to help students master writing - without doing the work for them. It gives real-time, individualised feedback at scale: in every topic, for every student, at their most teachable moments. Writers Toolbox can be used across subjects and we encourage students to use this programme at school and at their own pace at home. They do not need their teachers to set tasks for them in order to check their writing progress.

To date, our students have had good engagement with this program. As a school, our students have sought feedback on their writing 13,414 times, written a total of 349,000 words, and read 51,800 words in reading comprehension tests. Overall, we have seen a 55% value added to their writing tasks. We know this because each teacher has access to their students' work, the AI feedback, and as a school, we can track school-wide progress. This means individual teachers can check their students' progress, set tasks, and mark tasks themselves to complement the AI feedback.

If you would like to check in on your own child, you can ask them to show you their personalised feedback on their work. There are tasks they can do at home built into the program, and we encourage you to support their literacy journey at home through using the Writer's Toolbox. More information can be found at [https://www.writerstoolbox.com/](https://www.writerstoolbox.com/)

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to get in touch with the school.