With So Many Undergraduates, Why Is Social Mobility Still Declining?

The Editorial of School Leadership Today 9.1!

It is great to see so many young people gaining strong GCSE and A Level results, despite the exams being generally accepted as being harder this year. It confused those critics on the right who have constantly argued that simpler questions, course work and grade inflation has reduced their value as exams.

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      string(5336) "Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.THE 2017 STUDENT ACADEMIC EXPERIENCESURVEYKeywordsStudent,academicexperience,highereducation,ethnicity,accommodation,sexualorientation,policies,teaching qualitySummaryThis report, published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the HigherEducation Academy (HEA) proves shows that the student experience differs depending onethnicity, the type of accommodation and sexual orientation.Such factors have a direct impact on how engaged students are with their studies as well as on theiroverall quality of life. It shows: ■ how hard students are working; ■ how satisfied they are with their lives; and ■ what they think of recent government policies.The report suggests that improving teaching quality is an important factor in whether students believethey are getting value for money.The study also shows a wide variation in the number of teaching hours – with subjects such as historyhaving an average of eight hours per week, while medicine had 19 hours plus many more workinghours outside of the classroom.Students on medicine and dentistry courses were the most likely to feel they were getting value formoney, while social studies and business students were the most likely to feel they were not gettinggood value.There was a strong sense that universities were not doing enough to explain how tuition fees werespent – with only 20% of students saying they had received enough information.The annual study also examines wellbeing and happiness – and this has fallen to only 14% ofstudents saying they were satisfied with their lives.There are also negative outcomes for students’ sense of happiness and anxiety – with students havinglower levels of wellbeing than young people outside of university.Young women and gay students at university are particularly likely to feel unhappy.Over 14,000 full-time undergraduates took part in the survey this year.Main Points:Week Commencing 12th July 2017http://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-Student-Academic-Experience-Survey-Final-Report.pdfhttp://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-Student-Academic-Experience-Survey-Final-Report.pdfLeadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents. ■ It reveals that only 19% of students believe they receive enough information on how their feesare spent. And this suggests that institutions need deeper engagement and personalisationof approach with students at every stage of their higher education experience to meet theirexpectations better. ■ Across the UK, nearly as many students (34%) think they are receiving poor value as think theyare receiving good value (35%). Declining perceptions of value are evident among students fromEngland, Scotland and Northern Ireland but the biggest decline is in Scotland. ■ There is inconsistency between the attributes students want their staff to display and the attributesthey do display. For example, almost all (94%) students want their staff to undertake continuousprofessional development in teaching but far fewer (57%) think this happens. ■ The Survey explains the relative underperformance of students from Black and Minority Ethnicbackgrounds. For example, White students tend to feel more positive about teaching staffcharacteristics than students of other ethnicities, and Asian students are less likely to feel theyare learning ‘a lot’ than White students (59% versus 66%). ■ This may be partly explained by accommodation choice: 60% of Asian respondents live at homewhile studying, compared to just 24% of all respondents. The authors call for higher educationinstitutions to explore the “sticky campus” concept to ensure all students are fully integrated. ■ The Survey additionally paints a more detailed picture of the experiences of students of differentsexual orientations than ever before. Students who identify as straight do better on each of thefour wellbeing measures than other students. This suggests higher education institutions havefurther to go in providing a fully supportive environment for people of all sexual orientations. ■ Only a small proportion of respondents are at alternative providers and they are generally in thebigger, better-known alternative providers which are atypical. However, it is still notable that thosealternative providers’ students who are covered by the Survey provide more positive responses inmany areas than respondents as a whole. For example, they are: ■ more likely to believe they have enough information on where their fees go (35% versus 20%for all respondents); ■ more likely to be having an experience that is exceeding their original expectations (35%versus 25%); and ■ more likely to think they are getting good value (54% versus 35%).WEB LINKThe 2017 Student Academic Experience Surveyhttp://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-Student-Academic-Experience-Survey-Final-Report.pdf"
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Leadership

The 2017 Student Academic Experience Survey

9 Jun 2017

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      string(5632) "receptive, and on his own emailed the other students and invited them to sit down for a compassionate confrontation. My student used the script he had learned and was able to explain to his classmates why he was hurt without allowing heavy emotions to colour the conversation. The older students heard him and they were able to come to a shared agreement on times in which the older students would play their games, and other times in which the younger kids played so that all students were able to play in games at their own skill level. This student used compassionate confrontation perfectly. After deciding to confront his classmates, he used the script to write down everything he wanted to say in order to prevent an overly emotional response. We encourage students and adults alike to write their script in order to have a strong foundation for a conversation and prevent the ‘emotional freestyling’ that may happen without a plan. 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Special Needs

Strengthening the Role of Non-Academic Competencies

20 Nov 2019

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      string(5643) "more for the sake of understanding one another’s thinking than for the sake of ‘winning’.To double-check her colleagues’ interpretations, Joan brings a video clip of the teachers’ conversation back to her classroom and shows it to the students, asking them whether, in their opinion, the teachers’ interpretations of their learning are accurate. Students share their reflections on their learning as well as on the experience of watching the group of teachers interpret their learning.Owen: For an AP class, this went so far. This class taught me how to think … It was so much more than test prep.Liam: … Like someone [a teacher] said on the video, we really did come to care about greatness.Violet: What also happens is that teachers want you to come to a common definition or a consensus about something, and since that’s what the teacher wants, people’s thinking gets lost.Thalia: I felt like I could have my opinion. 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She uses post-its to invite feedback from the community, in effect expanding who can learn from and contribute to the learning in the classroom. Later, Melissa comments, ‘We have explicit conversations about where ideas come from, how they change and how we get good ideas from each other. As Elisa [one of Melissa’s students] says, “Sometimes somebody looks at what somebody else is doing, and they like it so much that they want to do the same thing.” In this way, children still feel connected to ideas they sprout, but they release ownership of them, allowing their ideas to grow, to be transformed, reconsidered and ultimately to become part of the group understanding.’ Melissa nurtures a classroom culture in which children and teachers talk openly and productively about student work. 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Arts-Based Learning

Assessment Reimagined

8 Jan 2019

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      string(365) "... For knowledge mobilisation to underpin the research-engaged school, organisational factors appear to exert greater influence than individual factors. The focus is on how organisations mobilise knowledge and convert it to practice. Hemsley-Brown and Sharp (2004) put it thus: ‘the conclusions from empirical research, in both education and nursing ..."
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      string(5634) "than by governments and academic researchers. However, as Levin (2008) states, over-reliance on tacit knowledge is unwise; people are not necessarily skilled at using experience to make sound decisions or exercise judgements about what is good practice. Personal judgment is not always a good substitute for evidence.  Equally, Kahneman (2011) argues human reason, left to its own devices, is apt to engage in a number of fallacies and systematic errors, so if we want to make better decisions in our personal and occupational lives, and as a society, we need to be aware of these biases and seek workarounds. Kahneman’s thesis would be that there are dangers in over-reliance on individual teachers’ experience as the basis of practice, especially tacit knowledge, and that teachers as a community, with an increased capacity to use evidence-informed practice, provide safeguards against ‘errors’ or, in Kahneman’s terms, ‘workarounds’. Mobilizing knowledgeLeadership and management play a crucial role in what Levin (2008) refers to as ‘knowledge mobilisation’. For knowledge mobilisation to underpin the research-engaged school, organisational factors appear to exert greater influence than individual factors. The focus is on how organisations mobilise knowledge and convert it to practice. Hemsley-Brown and Sharp (2004) put it thus: ‘the conclusions from empirical research, in both education and nursing, confirm that the main barriers to knowledge use in the public sector are not at the level of individual resistance, but originate in an institutional culture that does not foster learning’.Thus schools should become learning organisations, and we need to appreciate as organisations how practitioners think and work within them. Levin (2004) rightly claims organisational supports and incentives need boosting – especially as most social service organisations have low capacities for research absorption since managers have weak research backgrounds and spend little time on how research can boost performance.A suggested model for teacher research-into-practice within the PLC Singapore offers a useful model, as does Brown (2017) in an English context, as to how to start research-into-practice. First, the school community (including parents) share data to agree and prioritise the problems facing the school. Agreement and consensus is important, since all teachers must buy-in to the priorities in a scaled-up and sustained way. Consensus and buy-in are more likely with a data driven process. Then, teacher teams work collaboratively on researching, piloting, and evaluating the best practices to overcome the problems. The collaborative action learning cycle is an effective means for teachers to trial, learn, evaluate and implement new practices together.What role does leadership play in overcoming the barriers to research engagement? Policymakers and school leaders must justify PLCs in order to subsequently convince teachers of the benefits that can potentially flow in transforming teacher practices and learning outcomes (Dimmock, 2012). Effective leadership addresses the difficulties in transitioning to productive research environments. Teachers need the skills necessary to conduct rigorous research – hence the professional development time and opportunity to develop them. With the collaborative action cycle, many skills are learnt as the new practices are trialed and evaluated. A whole school approach where colleagues work collaboratively is conducive to a motivational culture, where leaders emphasize the developmental and improvement agenda rather than accountability. Barriers to teacher uptake of research also include problems of access and understanding. Research findings need to be distilled, understood and easily translated into practice. In these respects, leaders need to establish good networks with universities and access to data bases and libraries so that teachers can obtain the materials they need. Research engagement – the contribution of leadership in essence In creating and sustaining research-engaged schools leadership is instrumental in the following ways: at all levels – from headteacher to teacher leadership;in building the social and organizational capital – and hence the school culture – that values teaching and learning as research-informed activities;in ensuring acceptance of research-into-practice, meaning that all newly trialed practices that are improvements, get implemented; by scaling up and sustaining informed practice through formalizing values, organizational structures and processes (eg PLCs);by creating and supporting PLCs to involve all staff in researching and evaluating their practices in order to improve teaching, learning and leadership; by securing an agreed strategy for school-wide and school-deep research and evidence-based practice, centred on school problems, and deciding a methodology for teachers to apply – such as collaborative action learning;by building collaborative networks with other schools to undertake joint research, and addressing obstacles and barriers to research engagement.ReferencesBolam, R., McMahon, A., Stoll, L., Thomas, S., & Wallace, M. (2005). Creating and sustaining effective professional learning communities. Research Report No. 637. UK: Department for Education and Skills. ■ Brown, C. (2017). Research learning communities: How the RLC approach enables teachers to use research to improve their practice and the benefits for students that occur as a result."
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Executive Leadership

Leadership for mobilizing schools as research engaged communities

13 Feb 2019

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