Better Writing Data; Smarter Decision Making
Writer's Toolbox gives you real-time writing data to understand learning needs in ways never before possible.
The leadership responsibility for reporting on value add, and the educational progress of a class, a year level—an entire school. These are data problems. And in all these areas, Writer’s Toolbox offers educators laser-like insights to student writing abilities never before possible. The result: more-informed educational decision making, measurable goals, identifiable results.
School Performance
School performance dashboard gives school leaders real-time data over their school writing performance. You can see immediately how your school fares on a range of leading writing indicators. No more surprises at year end. In an instant, you can see where your school is excelling and areas for intervention. Set weekly or fortnightly goals, or plan ahead strategically to lift your school’s performance in key writing metrics. Present this intelligence to school boards; share successes with your parent community.
Deeper Analysis: Easy
For all the writing metrics we track, you can dive deeper to generate greater educational insights. Analysis graph—downloadable and exportable for storage and tracking—provides a valuable access point for tracking school progress.
Examine trend lines for a single metric and plot progress among different classes or year levels. Or, use our two-metric analysis to compare different indicators. And filter it all by class, year level, or whole school. It is such a powerful tool. Discovered 7D English had the highest number of improvements in April? Get their teacher to share practical examples of what worked for them—with the data to back it up.
Report Value Add to Your School Community
One of the toughest things to report in education, yet, the key duty of every educator: to add value. That students—whatever their age or ability level—might leave your school better and stronger, with greater life possibilities, because of the value your school added. But how do you measure that? How do you know you are even doing it? Writer’s Toolbox does the work for you. Our AI tracks the number of writing improvements your students make based on the feedback given inside our programme. And then measures the resulting lift in writing quality. For a teacher or school leader, you see value add in real time: from when a student first drafts a piece to when they finally finish it. The growth in writing quality— skill, clarity, depth—is measured and presented. That’s something to celebrate.
“I only follow research-based practices. So unless the research actually has a back up—that it's going to improve the lift of students writing outcomes—I wouldn't implement it.”
Anthony Swan, Principal, Eumundi State School
Monitor Class Performance
Class performance dashboard gives teachers easy access to critical writing metrics for their students. Click each tile to reveal a deeper look into each metric: see patterns and ascertain class writing progress data. Instantly know what they’re doing well. Where intervention is needed and how to achieve it. If your students are only hitting an average sentence length of 12 words at the start Term 2? Set a goal of 16 words by the end of Term 2 and track it daily. Achieving targets has never been easier.
Undertake Class Analysis
Class analysis is your snapshot into class performance in five key writing skills—Average Sentence Length, Fluency, Average Paragraph Length, Precision, Spelling. The convenient traffic light system gives you an instant look at each student. And dive deep by clicking on the lights to reveal the numerical data behind. It’s perfect for guiding creation of differentiation tasks so you can provide explicit support in that area.
Build Sentence Proficiency
Based on Dr Hunter’s 12 Ways to Write a Sentence, Writer’s Toolbox sentence graph provides a colourful visual of student sentence capacity. Teachers can immediately see what sentences their students are employing and the rate they’re using them. At a glance, identify which styles your class is over or underusing, and assess where students need explicit teaching. Are students applying the sentences being focused on? If not, why? Sentence graph makes it easy to see where intervention is needed and build deeper fluency and better writing.
"If you choose to make a commitment to Writer’s Toolbox, it does encompass so many different elements of teaching that are needed and required, especially if you’re a data driven teacher like me."
Claire Reynish, Teacher, Somerville House
Individual Student Profiles
Writer’s Toolbox offers every user insight into their writing in a form that is engaging and easy-to-understand. At the student level, a personalised performance dashboard gives them an immediate profile of their skills as a writer. Every student can see areas of strength, and areas for improvement. Students can set goals, and monitor their performance week by week or across school terms. Every metric is detailed, with supporting learning modules to teach these specific skills in more detail at age appropriate levels. We’re enriching classroom discussions about writing—in dialogue between learners, and in teacher/student conferencing.
Learning Journey Manager
Better decision making is spread across the Writer's Toolbox experience. In our learning modules, where students do interactive activities, comprehension tasks, and challenges to deepen their writing skills, teachers can monitor progress using Learning Journey Manager.
If you need a quick class visual snapshot of learning progress, it’s here. Want to dive into module completion rates and individual item progression? Easy. Identify struggling students or those who need stretching? Simple. Our enhanced filters allow you to view individuals, groups, writing ability levels, year levels, all at the click of a button. Learning Journey Manager gives you the assurance your students are learning the material they require each year for writing progress—all linked to curriculum standards.
Evidence-Based Success
Don’t take our word for it. In a four-year study of 78,000 students in 71 Queensland schools using Writer’s Toolbox, improvement in NAPLAN writing scores across all four year levels (3, 5, 7, 9) were two to ten times higher than the state. For boys, this was particularly pronounced: 9.6 times state improvement. Such transformation isn’t isolated.
Independent research by the New Zealand Government’s Education Research Office (ERO) reported schools using Writer’s Toolbox showed writing effect scores double those normally experienced. Particularly successful were groups that have traditionally struggled with writing—boys, disadvantaged learners, indigenous learners. Schools reported greater staff buy-in and momentum, and students showed far more enthusiasm. Now, that’s tangible change.
