How We Link The National Curriculum and the Common Core
National Curriculum
Common CoreWe have integrated an assessment system to enable teachers to track writing attainment against National Curriculum objectives. Every piece of writing that your students create on nightzookeeper.com can be marked and you will also be able to send them a specific comment relating to a piece of writing. You can also export a printable PDF assessment report, which shows you writing children have produced alongside the objectives they have achieved on nightzookeeper.com.
We have compartmentalised the English Curriculum into the following areas to help target specific skills:
- Transcription and Spelling
- Composition and Vocabulary
- Grammar
- Punctuation
The following table shows a sample of learning objectives from the Year 3 & 4 Curriculum and how they can be achieved whilst working on nightzookeeper.com.
| Category | Learning Objective | Learning Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Composition and vocabulary | Develop detail of characters, settings and plot in narratives | Children have the opportunity to write stories about each character that they create on Night Zookeeper. Each character is also placed in an inspirational setting, which provides direction for the narratives that they write. |
| Transcription and Spelling | Spell words which are often misspelt from the Y3-4 list | Teachers can track words that children commonly spell incorrectly and prompt them to include the correct spellings in future work that they produce on nightzookeeper.com |
| Grammar | Understand the difference between plural and possessive '-s' | Children write sentences about objects and skills that their magical animals acquire throughout the game, which provide opportunities to use both possessive and plural ‘-s’ |
| Punctuation | Use and punctuate direct speech correctly | Children are invited to write news reports, which encourage quotation and direct speech from the characters involved in the story. |
Tracking Progress
We have supplied a full list of assessment criteria from Year 1 - Year 6 at primary school level, therefore teachers can assess writing at any level. Children become inspired to write a huge amount of content for nightzookeeper.com, which means that teachers receive a large pool of evidence within their dashboard. Our website data has proven that on average, 35% of students continue to practice their writing at home and it inspires the most reluctant of writers to produce their best work!
Night Zookeeper has an integrated assessment system to enable teachers to track writing attainment against Common Core Standards. Every piece of writing that students create on nightzookeeper.com can be assessed and teachers will be able to send them a specific comment relating to a piece of writing. Teachers can also export a printable PDF report, which details writing students have produced alongside the standards they have achieved.
We have compartmentalised the Language Arts Common Core Standards into the following areas to help target specific skills:
- Conventions of standard English
- Sentence Structure
- Punctuation and Spelling
- Knowledge of Language
- Vocabulary Acquisition
- Word relationships
The following table shows a sample of learning objectives from the Grade 3 standards and how they can be achieved whilst working on nightzookeeper.com
| Category | Standard | Learning Activity |
|---|---|---|
| Conventions of standard English | Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs. | Students produce a great number of drawings for their Night Zoo, which provide wonderful inspiration for descriptive writing. Creating characters and using superlative adjectives to describe them is a core activity for students on nightzookeeper.com. |
| Sentence Structure | Produce complete simple and compound sentences. | Students are asked a large number of questions about each magical animal they create. These provide great opportunities for students to showcase their ability to vary their sentence structure and construct compound sentences. |
| Punctuation and Spelling | Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue. | Students are invited to write news reports, which encourage quotation and direct speech from the characters involved in the story |
| Vocabulary Acquisition | Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. | Young Night Zookeepers unlock chapters of our story as they build their own Night Zoo. They are essentially rewarded with reading throughout the game, which provides great opportunities to develop their range of vocabulary. |
Assessment Criteria
We have supplied a full list of assessment criteria from Grade 1 - Grade 6 at elementary school level, therefore teachers can assess writing at any level. Children become inspired to write a huge amount of content for nightzookeeper.com, which means that teachers receive a large pool of evidence within their dashboard. Our website data has proven that on average, 35% of students continue to practice their writing at home and it inspires the most reluctant of writers to produce their best work!
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Learn MoreOfsted Encourages Creative Teaching and Learning
There is a common misconception that Ofsted would like all schools to teach using the same methods, follow the same ethos and compartmentalise their lessons into clear subject areas.
However, it has been found schools that adopt creative approaches to teaching and learning are more likely to be successful during an inspection. The Government are also seeing an increase in the number of parents calling for creativity to be added to the curriculum and take a larger role in their child’s education.
What is creativity?
If you were to ask a stranger to think of someone creative, names will roll off their tongue - Picasso, Mozart, Jobs, Da Vinci, Rowling - the list goes on. Ask the same stranger what makes these famous names creative, and you may well be faced with a blank expression. For years, creativity has been a nebulous concept in many minds, often solely reserved for those who were naturally gifted in the “the arts”. Often synonymous with “disorganised” and “chaotic”, creativity was stereotypically seen as an attribute useful only if you had future plans of becoming a painter or musician. Juxtaposed to this were pursuits which required logic and reasoning, known as “the sciences”. Those who wished to be engineers or physicists had no time for creativity, only for order and perfection.
In order to define creativity for the purpose of this article we draw on the work of Sir Ken Robinson. He claims that creativity is a 3-part process. It begins with imagination, bringing to mind concepts which are not immediately available to the five senses. Following this, you employ your creativity, using the concepts you have imagined to generate original ideas, which have value. Thirdly comes innovation, putting original ideas into action.
Creativity is a disciplined process that requires skill, knowledge and control
Sir Ken Robinson, 2009.
The rise of project based learning Implementing a creative approach to teaching and learning can be very difficult within rigorous timetables and routines. However, it is important to note that Ofsted recognise the importance of a creative approach to teaching and have previously celebrated project based learning (PBL) methods during school inspections. A study entitled ‘Learning: Creative Approaches that Raise Standards’ (Ofsted, January, 2010) found schools that used a PBL method of teaching and learning achieved an outstanding Ofsted report. These schools implemented cross-curricular learning for their students, which allowed them to solve problems and answer open-ended questions.(Good Practice Resource, Ofsted, 2013)
Parents calling for creativity
The development of these skills, which a PBL method facilitates, are exactly what we have found parents are calling for. Night Zookeeper commissioned research into perceptions of parents towards creativity at school.
1,000 parents were surveyed across the UK in October 2014 and we found the following:
- 9 out of 10 parents think activities that teach creative skills should be added to the curriculum
- Over half of UK parents think recent changes to the curriculum have reduced opportunities for creative learning
- Three quarters of parents think modern technology can provide a vehicle for creativity and it should be integrated into more lessons
Can We Teach Creativity?
As previously discussed, creativity must be considered to be a combination of skills and thought processes, neither of which are necessarily natural. Therefore, if we consider creativity something that can be learned, how do we teach it?
Csikszentmihalyi (1996) argues that the environment of an individual can either nurture or hinder the development of creativity. In the classroom, this is especially important to remember, because creativity is not at the forefront of most children’s education. If a child’s environment doesn’t allow them to experiment, to try new things, to ask questions - their creativity is most likely to be diminished. However, if we consider creativity to be an important factor in children’s learning, we must design classrooms and lessons with this in mind.
How can Night Zookeeper help?
Night Zookeeper is widely used in schools as a great way to begin implementing a PBL approach. The website and educational materials that accompany it, focus on some core areas of the curriculum; English, Computing, Art and Design, Science and Drama. Crucially, it enables teachers to integrate them seamlessly, so that children are immersed in a project and develop vital skills without the rigorous instruction that they are more commonly used to.
The project encourages creativity both in writing and in art work, the children need to be diverse in their thinking. It has enabled my reluctant boys to be engaged. They really love being given time on the website.
Jacqui Latham, St. James Primary School, Bolton
