WordFlyers School Case Studies

Burwood Girls’ High School heard about WordFlyers at ETA, we trialled it in term 4, 2014 and then subscribed to the program in term 1, 2015. Our year 7–9 students use WordFlyers at least once a fortnight in an 80 minute lesson. During this time, students work through the lessons at their own pace. This gives the teacher time to work with each student to look at and discuss their progress, for the teacher to analyse the student’s results in the WordFlyers reports and to discuss which topics may need to be revised or focussed on.

Some students also complete lessons as homework. Happily, from recent NAPLAN results, we’ve seen a significant improvement in students’ literacy skills. In particular, students’ results in reading, spelling and grammar have strongly improved from 2015 to 2017. WordFlyers has made a difference in our school.

Pauline Hageman
Head Teacher, English and Drama
Burwood Girls High School
Burwood, New South Wales

All of our Years 7, 8 and 9 students have a subscription.

The online maths program we were using was working well, so we thought WordFlyers was worth a go. All of our Years 7, 8 and 9 students have a subscription and each fortnight, where possible, teachers book a computer lab for student access. On top of this, students are encouraged to access WordFlyers two to three times a week for regular homework.

Students find the program to be fun and engaging. Each week I put in the school notices the top WordFlyers students in each year group and hand out a ‘Berka Buck’ reward to the top student in every class.

We are still in the early stages of implementation, but next year we will hopefully see minimum standards reached. We have NAPLAN results prior to WordFlyers, so we will be able to track if the program has made an impact.

Simone Alchin
Head Teacher English, AVID site and tutorial Coordinator, AVID facilitator (Critical Reading)
Tuggerah Lakes Secondary College
Berkeley Vale Campus
Berkeley Vale, New South Wales

Over 250 students at La Salle Academy use WordFlyers to help raise their literacy skills. Since February 2016, each student at the school has completed 93 lessons on average. The top performers are recognised at school assemblies!

Frances Leighton
La Salle Academy
Lithgow, New South Wales

Students enjoy the program and are keen to use it.

We are using WordFlyers in class once a week and for homework, as well as to bring specific students up to standard and for revision. We also use it with our international students who have moved from the language school to mainstream classes. This means that Year 9 and Year 10 ESL students and Year 11 EALD students are using the program. We are hoping that it will help them when they write NAPLAN and OLNA.

We wanted to find an engaging way for students to practise their language skills. We conducted a trial towards the end of 2015; both teachers and staff were keen to continue, so we subscribed.

Students enjoy the program and are keen to use it. We limit the time spent on the games – the students have to do a certain time on the content, and then they have 10 minutes of game time.

As yet, it is difficult to measure how WordFlyers has benefited our students. But by the end of the year we will have more data on the improvement in skills. However, individual improvement is evident in the reports generated by the website.

Susan Lazenby
Head of English Learning Area
St George’s Anglican Grammar School
Perth, Western Australia

Students prefer the website to a book because it’s interactive and they love the visual stimulus.

We subscribed to WordFlyers to replace student workbooks that we used for practice and the development of skills. It has provided a regular practice time of English skills that we do not get time for in the classroom.

We wanted to have a homework program that was relevant, easy to use and high interest. Our students use it several times a week; for homework as well as in class time and for NAPLAN preparation.

“Students prefer the website to a book because it’s interactive.”

I Iike the different levels of difficulty, the ease of getting online and how easy it is to check students’ achievements through class reports. Students are motivated by the points and travel, and the visual way they can see how much they have done.

Students prefer the website to a book because it’s interactive and they love the visual stimulus. They like it because it is using technology, they can see how much they have done (it’s measurable), it’s individual, they can hear the instructions (and the text if necessary), they can do more than the set minimum and go ahead if they wish.

Checking the marks of several classes on WordFlyers is easier than marking three classes of work books, so it has a bonus for the teacher too!

Vivienne Mohr
English teacher
Livingstone Christian College
Ormeau, Queensland