Raising achievement in inclusive education

Learning communities from Italy, Poland and the UK took part in a project that set out to identify key issues and successful strategies in raising achievement in learners. Verity Donnelly examines the findings.

teacher kneeling at desk to assist pupil

The Raising the Achievement of all Learners project is a three-year project run by the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education. The project, which builds on earlier work on ‘Raising Achievement for all Learners-Quality in Inclusive Education’ aims to explore what pedagogical strategies and teaching approaches are effective in raising the achievement of all learners. It also considers how school leaders can best support the development, implementation and monitoring of inputs and processes for raising achievement. A third focus area for the project is that of collaboration. The project involves a range of stakeholders including school leaders, researchers, teachers, parents and learners as well as local and national policy makers.

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      string(5743) "1.5Leading LearningStudent Voiceand more engaged in school development planning. The Year 8 students are leaving Year 13 this summer and in their lifetime here, Newstead has become a school that not only listens to students but empowers them to share in its leadership.Major study Throughout 2007-08 we undertook a major study on behalf of the Association of Maintained Girls’ Schools, commissioned by the DCSF. The project considered five strands of good practice which accelerated girls’ progress. There has been a national focus on addressing boys’ underachievement: it has turned attention away from girls who may attain acceptable grades in public accreditations but may not be achieving as highly as they could.We conducted five case studies in schools that have highly effective strategies in place to raise standards of achievement for girls who are able to achieve GCSE A/A*. The summary of main findings identified 11 key success factors, which reveal the schools’ commitment to co- construction:Leadership is visionary, relentless in its drive for improvement and sets high expectations of staff and students. Staffing structures, roles and responsibilities are redesigned and strategies for raising achievement are well led and managed. There are strong value systems and an ethos of compassion. There is a commitment to personalised learning. Learning matters, more than content. Teachers are very skilled in developing pedagogies that support ‘Deep Learning’ (see below). Self and peer-assessment are embedded. Data-handling systems are well developed. Formative and summative assessments are handled with confidence. Personal target-setting is sophisticated and constantly improving. Qualitative evidence of students’ abilities is rated highly. Students’ personal learning competencies, skills and extra-curricular achievements are recognised in formal awards and celebrations. Mutually supportive relationships between student, home and school are regarded as essential. Staff and senior students lead extensive, challenging opportunities for study and enrichment inside and beyond the classrooms. Senior students are academic and personal mentors to younger students, modelling successful learning behaviours. Academic (one-to-one) tutorials are highly structured and focus on individual learning skills as well as subject- specific strategies for improvement. Student voice is well developed. In the classroom, in their progression planning, in formal contexts such as a school council, students are able to articulate their viewsnnnnnnnnnnnand make decisions. The schools are close to achieving or have already achieved co-construction.Each of the case studies could demonstrate the positive impact on the attainment of A/A* grades that co- construction had had. The most dramatic improvement was in the urban comprehensive school, where students’ and parents’ greater engagement in and accountability for their learning raised confidence and aspirations.Below we look at three of Newstead’s strategies to raise standards of achievement through co-construction. They will not ‘stand alone’, nor will they transport directly to another context. Each school needs to think through its core purpose and develop its practice appropriately to its context. Our strategies may serve as prompts to that thinking and assurances that empowering students to share the leadership of their school will raise standards.Deep Learning is our core purpose. We aim to inspire a passion for learning in our students, so that they can leave school articulate, confident, resilient and able to learn. By the time they start their working lives, much of the content in our curriculum will be out of date and they will need to have honed their research and independent learning skills if they are to thrive in their adult world.We have taken all of the opportunities given to schools in the National Key Stage 3 Curriculum Strategies and have introduced a concept-driven curriculum in Year 7. Students keep learning logs which record how they are learning, where they are developing their personal learning and thinking skills and the outcomes of one-to-one learning conversations with peers, tutors and subject teachers on specific strategies for improvement.The Deep Learning curriculum and the learning logs took two years to design – one year of consideration, research and discussion; one year of restructuring roles and responsibilities (such as appointing a senior teacher to lead Deep Learning), redesigning the timetable, redesigning all schemes of learning to incorporate the concept-driven programme.What is Deep Learning? In all years, Deep Learning is a fundamental driver for raising achievement. Self and peer-assessment are central: students know the achievement criteria and are able to articulate their progress. They have access to a range of learning methodologies and can design their personal learning pathway to achievement, with access to both subject- specific and general guidance from teachers, tutors and senior students.The research and the developments in Deep Learning gave students their voice. Once they were able to articulate how they learn best and what successful learning looks like for them, they participated more in lesson plenaries, focus groups, the school council. It became increasingly apparent that we were able to trust the learner to become more closely engaged in school development, design and leadership.Senior students were already leading clubs, societies, sports teams, music ensembles and their school council."
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Leadership

Co-constructing an outstanding school

17 Dec 2009

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      string(5734) "average of 26 score points, compared to an average of38 score points – the equivalent of nearly one year of schooling – in print reading.■ Some 77 per cent of adults with a vocational upper secondary or post-secondarynon-tertiary qualification are employed – a rate that is seven percentage pointshigher than that among adults with a general upper secondary education as theirhighest qualification.■ One in five 20 to 24-year-olds is neither employed nor in education or training.■ Around 57 per cent of employed adults with good skills in ICT and in problemsolving participate in employer-sponsored formal and/or non-formal education;only nine per cent of adults who cannot use a computer and lack problem-solvingskills participate in such programmes.16Vol 7.2School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comReportsLeadershipBriefingWhat role do school characteristics, strategies and implementation approachesplay in raising the achievement of disadvantaged pupils? 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The research identifiedseven distinct ‘building blocks of success’, including: an emphasis on achievementfor all pupils, addressing the needs of individual pupils, using evidence in decision-making and responsive leadership.■ Schools’ typical pathways to improvement take around three to five years.Beginning with a focus on attendance and behaviour alongside quality teaching,schools can embed their support for disadvantaged pupils, and the most successfulare able to contribute to system improvement.■ Certain school characteristics have a strong relationship with disadvantaged pupils’performance. For example, lower performance was associated with higher absencelevels and lower proportions of disadvantaged pupils. Schools in London and theNorth East had better results for disadvantaged pupils. 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This proportion rose by three percentagepoints on average between 2005 and 2013 among countries with comparable data.Read the full report:www.oecd.org/edu/education-at-a-glance-19991487.htmhttp://www.oecd.org/edu/education-at-a-glance-19991487.htm17Vol 7.2School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comReportsLeadershipBriefingstrategies, and those that schools considered to be the most effective, focused onteaching and learning. The three most effective strategies cited were: paired orsmall group additional teaching, improving feedback and one-to-one tuition.■ Most schools (93.1 per cent) had received support from governors for their plansto improve disadvantaged pupils’ performance, and over half (54.2 per cent) hadreceived such support from local authorities.■ More successful schools were more likely to be using metacognitive/independentlearning and peer learning strategies (although this relationship was onlystatistically significant in secondary schools). 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Leadership

SLT 7.2 Report update

18 Dec 2015

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      string(5689) "58Vol 7.5School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comLeadingLearningAchievementWith lack-lustre GCSE results anda low percentage of pupils makinggood progress, leaders at BedfordAcademy knew decisive actionwas needed in every department.Here Kayleigh Greenacre, headof arts and sports, reveals the sevenstrategies that have proved mostsuccessful in driving rapid pupilprogress.Raising achievement and improving rates ofprogress, especially across Key Stage 4, has beena particular priority for Bedford Academy.In September 2014, the school took on anew and unusual approach to teaching GCSEs—mixed-age classes consisting of pupils from Year 9, 10 and 11,who were all to complete two single GCSEs within eachyear to maximise their overall chance of achieving moreGCSEs and making rapid progress within each subject.The academy previously taught GCSEs across two years(Year 10 and 11).In 2015, however, just 42 per cent of pupils achievedfive A*-Cs including English and maths. We wanted toimprove that. My task, as Director of Learning of the artsand sports department (or learning village, as we call it),was to improve the achievement of pupils in the faculty’ssix subject areas: art, dance, drama, music, media and PE.Seven steps to raisingachievement59Vol 7.5School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comLeadingLearningAchievementThe middle leaders are given aweek to complete that task withthe support of myself and theassistant principal, then we reviewits effectiveness and progress in thenext week’s meeting.“”Establishing prioritiesWe decided to focus, in particular, on progress in four of the aforementioned subjectareas. The aim was to increase the percentage of KS4 students achieving four levels ofprogress, from 2014’s figures—33.3 per cent in dance, 31.8 per cent in drama, 50 percent in media and a dismal zero per cent in music—to 100 per cent by 2016.An ambitious goal, certainly. However, the hope was that, in increasing theproportion of students making substantial progress, we could at the same timeinspire other pupils to similar heights, raising aspirations and improving our students’overall employability. We identified pupil premium students and white British boys asa particular priority, as, historically, these pupils have experienced lower outcomes andenjoyed less opportunities later in life.In order to reach this goal, our teachers would need to be motivated, driven andfocused on supporting every single student in each of their classes. My role as thedepartment head, then, had to be supporting the staff in my team with this andensuring they were actively developing their teaching practice.My seven strategies for successThroughout the first year and a half of my impact initiative, I have used a range ofstrategies that have already had a clear impact, ensuring all students are given the bestpossible chance of achieving in each subject. Seven of the strategies proved particularlysuccessful in driving staff and students forward, with teachers feeling like they havemore ownership over their classes, and pupils pushing themselves to achieve. Theseseven strategies are outlined below.1. Developing my middle leadersWith over 20 members of staff in myteam, assistant principal Kim Bradleysuggested I set up an arts and sports‘middle leaders project’ to focus onthe development of my own middleleaders, which would develop theirleadership skills, as well as supportthem with accountability.The three main middle leaderswho I directly line manage areall very focused and dedicatedmembers of staff. Some of themwere new to being a leader, so thisseemed like the perfect project tosupport them with their new roles.The project is ongoing andinvolves us meeting once a weekon a Monday morning to discuss that week’s middle leaders’ focus, which could beanything from learning walks, to book scrutiny, to data reviews with their teams. Themiddle leaders are given a week to complete that task with the support of myself andthe assistant principal, then we review its effectiveness and progress in the next week’smeeting. Each middle leader has a project folder, which enables them to collate thisinformation and file all important documents.This project is proving to be a real success, and the middle leaders involved arefinding it very useful. At the beginning of the project, each middle leader was given acompetency framework to complete based on leadership qualities—this was exploredby each middle leader and is reviewed regularly.Says Emma Underwood, lead teacher of PE, ‘The middle leaders project issupportive in our development and is very organised. It’s great for morale as a teamand as a leader, and a great way of sharing ideas with other middle leaders.’2. 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Leadership

Seven steps to raising achievement

4 Oct 2016

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      string(383) "... closely monitored. In Autumn 2018, 58% of the target cohort attended after school clubs compared to 42% of pupil premium children.Emotional intelligence: (Self-protective strategies, emotional self-management strategies, increased self-esteem, confidence in making choices)Designated staff within the school have worked with many of the target children ..."
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      string(5664) "A primary school in an urban area of the north west of England with 350 pupils identified the need to improve attendance, parental engagement and resilience for disadvantaged pupils. The majority of pupils at the school are from White British heritage. A small minority of pupils speak English as an additional language. The percentage of pupils known to be eligible for pupil premium is 24%. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is 15%. Four of the pupils have an EHC Plan. Pupil numbers have increased in recent years and the school admits a number of pupils during the school year. ApproachAs a school, it chose to focus on the use of adults in the classroom to support independent learning and resilience, the impact of middle leaders on curriculum and learning and use of structured conversations* to improve parental engagement and wider outcomes for pupils.A target group of 24 children were identified in years 1–5 for one of the following reasons, although the majority were also eligible for pupil premium funding: Below age-related attainmentBelow expected progress from starting points (this includes some pupils with good attainment who had the potential to make accelerated progress)Limited parental engagement with school. Through a needs analysis, the school identified the following broad areas of focus to bring about the changes they wanted: Leadership for inclusionProvision to close the gapParental engagement Developing behaviours for attendanceLearning and well-beingEffective use of pupil premiumMaximising the impact of teaching assistantsMiddle leadership development Using effective feedback*Structured conversations (used in Achievement for All programmes) between teachers, parents and their child provide a platform for parents to engage in the learning process. They have an opportunity to discuss their child’s aspirations and interests and contribute to setting targets for their child. Parents feel valued, teachers say they get to know the children better (their learning needs and interests) and children say they like the interest their parents show in their school work.ImpactLeadership for inclusion: Over the year, school leaders sustained a focus on the aspirations, access and achievement of all pupils with SEND or vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils. A culture of distributed, inclusive and effective provision for disadvantaged pupils was consolidated across the school.Teaching and learning:TA training on maximising the use of extra adults in the classroom, questioning and fostering independence has promoted best practice with all adults working with disadvantaged children across the school. All TAs accessed this training and development; in practice it has been evident in learning walks. Exploring feedback is an ongoing conversation between teachers, as the school adapts its policy to maximise its impact on learning. Middle leaders have undertaken audits of teaching and learning in their subject areas and are implementing their findings to ensure consistency and progression of skills across the school in all curriculum areas. Pupil premium funding continues to be used to support learning within the classroom. A detailed analysis of barriers for disadvantaged pupils has resulted in more focused use of pupil premium funding. Parental engagement: 100% of parents of those children chosen to be part of the trial, engaged in their initial structured conversation, with the majority also engaging in follow up conversations. Overall engagement in Year 1 was 92%. The structured conversations increased teachers’ awareness of barriers to achievement, access and aspiration. Areas for partnership work with parents focused, in Key Stage One, on maths, social and emotional skills, basic skills and home routines; in Key Stage Two, the focus moved towards reading, writing, maths and attitudes towards learning. Clear evidence of increased parental engagement can be seen where explicit actions were agreed upon during structured conversations and parents clearly saw their role in furthering their child’s achievements. This included making time to read with their child, working with designated school staff to improve social and emotional wellbeing and encouraging children to be more resilient, both socially and academically. Pupil attitude to learning: Pupils across the school now show good attitudes to learning whilst in school. In the target cohort there is evidence of improved attitude to learning at home. This includes reading at home with parents/carers, working on a particular area at home, as discussed during structured conversations, and increased awareness of the need for resilience. Wider outcomes: Pupil premium funding continues to be used to provide wider opportunities for eligible children. Opportunities include educational visits (including residential), swimming lessons and visits by professionals from different curriculum areas with a focus on raising aspirations. Attendance at after school clubs is now more closely monitored. In Autumn 2018, 58% of the target cohort attended after school clubs compared to 42% of pupil premium children.Emotional intelligence: (Self-protective strategies, emotional self-management strategies, increased self-esteem, confidence in making choices)Designated staff within the school have worked with many of the target children and received training in using the BOXALL profile to aid assessment and management of emotional/social barriers which"
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Special Needs

It’s Time for a New Approach to Battling Underachievement

20 Sep 2019

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