WHY CLOSING THE WORD GAP MATTERS comes from the Oxford University Press.

 

It finds that the vocabulary gap is high in primary and secondary schools. It argues that relatively little research has been carried out into language deficit as children move through secondary education.

Additionally, the teachers who took part in this survey often reported  that the vocabulary gap is a general problem, not specific to any one group of pupils such as those with English as an additional language.

The cause can be put down to a lack of opportunities to practise vocabulary in the home and not enough time spent reading for pleasure.

Other main findings

? Almost half of five and six-year-olds are at risk underperforming academically because they have a limited vocabulary.

? In the first year of secondary school, more than four in 10 students still do not know enough words to do well in school.

? 49 per cent of Year 1 pupils have a limited vocabulary that impacts on their learning.

There are many more in the full document.

What do effective schools do to address this problem?

1. Provide support/ intervention through speech therapists or one-on-one  teaching assistant time in primary school. In secondary school extra literacy lessons, extra resources and mentoring programmes are set up .
2. Ensure a whole class focus on vocabulary in both primary and secondary schools, along with dedicated reading time and literacy help resources.
3. Employ a whole-school literacy policy, which includes giving children access to quality texts with discussion about them. Reading  across the curriculum is valued. Things like word games clubs and specific reward systems have been encouraged.

Teachers are given specific training to help find ways to increase children’s literacy and vocabulary.

Improving Mathematics in Key Stages Two and Three: Evidence Review is published by the  Education Endowment Foundation.

There are useful key findings that will add to your discussion toolbox. Some appear to be common sense but it’s always good to have evidence to back your anecdotally based thoughts.

Here are a few to start off with:

• Calculators can enhance learning but they need to be taught how to use them properly and in a thoughtful way.
• Calculators in primary school aided a greater understanding of and fluency with arithmetic.
• Feedback and collaborative learning have positive effects on learning with the latter particularly so in secondary school.
• Discussion is a key element of mathematics teaching and learning but teachers need to actively structure these dialogues.
• Teaching thinking skills, metacognition and self-regulation can be effective in mathematics.
• Technology can be very effective, but it needs to be used properly.
• Homework: more effective at secondary than primary level.
• Subject (or ‘content’ in the report) knowledge referred to as CK on its own isn’t very effective. It needs to be translated into  PCK – Pedagogic Content Knowledge, to have the most impact. in other words, it’s not what you know but how you deliver it that makes a difference.

There’s a lot more. It runs to 200 pages. But worth looking at the main points.

The first piece from Jen is her reflection on a new marking policy in her school. Read her full article here.

There are comments that will resonate with a lot of teachers. For example:

“During my five years of teaching alone, I have adopted three different varieties of marking policies…”.

Jen discusses the different aspects of marking that she has come across and includes some examples of work.

There are some very useful further reading references.

The Education Development Trust report on what might be learnt from 30 years of England’s approach to school performance data- The National Pupil Database.

The seven main points are called ‘lessons’. Here are the headlines for each lesson:

1.  The English school accountability system benefits from a data infrastructure of national tests and information about pupil characteristics, supported by technology.
2. The experience demonstrates the risks of an over-simplistic approach to school performance data.
3. There has been an important and lively debate about ‘value-added’ measures which take into account the starting points of pupils.
4. There is a need for a national accountability system that evolves over time.
5. Accountability measures have played a significant role in the development of school self-evaluation.
6. There is benefit from comparing their own students’ performance with that of the national database through item-level analysis.
7. There should be an alignment between data-based support for internal school improvement and external school improvement through inspection.

They are keen on this approach, stating (p11):

“The national data set in England now includes information about tens of millions of current and former school pupils”. This is an impressive database.

Interesting comments such as (p15) :

“The data system has enabled successive governments to drive an agenda of national reform and to attempt to improve teaching and learning,” can fuel debate and probably cause a level of argument.

The authors state some shortcomings (p20 ):

“The notion of a single indicator, or a very small group of indicators, able to provide the basis for an overall judgement of school quality may have some attractions to policymakers, but schools are complex organisations and good schools must ensure multiple outcomes. School performance needs to be measured using multiple dimensions and this requires different types of indicators.”

                            If you’d like to see the full report, it’s here.

Photo by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash

 

The  Youth Sport Trust report PE Provision In Secondary Schools 2018 states data to support their stance.

 

The detail is worth considering but the causes of a decrease in PE timetabling is not surprising:

• Exam pressure
• Additional curriculum time for other subjects  e.g.core/
  eBacc
• Staffing cuts

It is noted that PE teachers  feel strongly that the subject needs to be more valued amongst school leaders, parents, wider stakeholders and importantly young people.

Although a secondary school focus  report it states that only 22% of children aged 5 to 15 in England meet the Chief Medical Officer’s recommended 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous activity.

Unlocking talent, fulfilling potential (DfE) suggests how the Government proposes to attack poor social mobility. They have broken the issue into four sections called ‘Ambitions’ and each Ambition has a set of ‘Challenges’.

Have a look at the aspect which is most important for you and consider the wider ranging implications. There are some interesting ideas. For example:  A ‘Teacher Development Premium’ that will aim to provide a £1,000 per teacher budget for ‘evidence-based’ professional development.

 

• Ambition 1 – Close the ‘word gap’ in the early years.

Challenge 1: Ensuring more disadvantaged children are able to
experience a language rich early environment

Challenge 2: Improving the availability and take-up of high quality
early years provision by disadvantaged children and in challenging
areas

Challenge 3: Improving the quality of early years provision in
challenging areas by spreading best practice

• Ambition 2 – Close the attainment gap in school while continuing to raise standards for all

Challenge 1: Improving the quality of teaching in challenging areas
and schools

Challenge 2: Improving the school improvement offer in more
challenging areas

Challenge 3: Supporting pupils from less advantaged backgrounds
of all abilities to fulfil their potential

• Ambition 3 – High quality post-16 education choices for all young people.

Challenge 1: Creating high quality technical education options to
improve the choice for young people at age 16

Challenge 2: Investing in the further education sector

Challenge 3: Ensuring young people from disadvantaged
backgrounds access the highest quality provision

• Ambition 4 – Everyone achieving their full potential in rewarding careers

Challenge 1: Collaborating with businesses large and small to
widen opportunity, and drive up local skills and productivity

Challenge 2: Improving the quality and availability of good careers
guidance and experiences, targeting ‘career cold spots’

Challenge 3: Ensuring those in lower paid work are able to re-train to
move into more rewarding careers

 

There are a lot of key findings in the full report 

It is important to see that the positive impact of feedback is only linked to Maths teaching in this instance.

The focus schools’ students gained an additional four weeks learning over a year’s work.

Teachers and principals in focus schools received:

• more frequent feedback than teachers and principals in control schools.
• more feedback sessions on their classroom practice with ratings and a written narrative justification

Teacher focus: class teaching skills

Principal focus: leadership skills, specifically Instructional Leadership and leader-teacher trust

The classroom observations were generally by video.

Focus group principals received more instances of oral feedback with ratings on their leadership than control principals.

Unsurprisingly, the study’s measures provided information to identify educators who needed support.

It is worth considering these main points in relation to the ‘reflective practitioner’ and knowing how much impact you have.

What is Character Education?

The DfE: Character education includes any activities that aim to develop desirable character traits or attributes in children and young people. Such desirable character traits:

•  Can support improved academic attainment
• Are valued by employers
• Can enable children to make a positive contribution to British society.

Through case studies it was recognised that successful character education is not about stand-alone lessons but part of a school’s over-arching philosophy and aims. The case study schools recognised their responsibilities to:

•  Encourage pupils to understand, value and demonstrate the positive behaviour traits that would make them well-rounded, grounded citizens;
• Support the development of the skills required to function in and contribute to society;
• Support social and emotional development, in order for pupils to better understand themselves and work on their weaknesses;
•  Instil pupils with a moral compass and skills in understanding and interacting with other people.

The schools attributed their success to:

• Having a clear vision and whole school approach embedded across the curriculum
• Being driven forward by strong leadership
• Being delivered and modelled by staff with the appropriate skills and time
• Access to activities that could be tailored appropriately to the needs of students.

There are challenges. Of course. These are recognised in the full report.

Have a look at the The Commission on Inequality in Education Report 

The recommendations (from p7) are very interesting. As usual, we suggest you read them and come up with your own thoughts.

Here are a few of the main findings:

?  Since the mid-1980s and the mid-2000s the large performance gap between rich and poor has made no significant improvement.

? GCSE performance at age 16: over 60% of pupils in London achieving 5 good GCSEs (including English and Maths) compared to 55% in the West and East Midlands.

? Performance of 11-year olds born in 2000 with those born in 1970 reveals that the geographic area has become a more powerful predictive factor for those born in 2000 compared to 1970.

? At age 11, Yorkshire & Humberside and the West Midlands have disproportionately high numbers of low-scoring pupils. The North West and London have disproportionately high numbers of high-scoring pupils.

? Fascinating to see that: In verbal reasoning tests for 11-year-olds, the median score for children with someone attending parents’ evening is 3 points higher than for those without.

 

In Hidden talents: the overlooked children whose poor verbal skills mask potential GL Assessment  report that a large minority of children are failing to get good GCSEs because poor verbal reasoning skills are hiding their innate talents. Whilst they suggest that the country is wasting a large, untapped reserve of young scientists and engineers, there must be an implication that talent is being squandered across the board.

There are many findings and we suggest that you access the whole report here. However, this Maths finding is a stand-out:

Those with good spatial and verbal abilities achieving an A*–B: 89%

Those with high spatial skills but poor verbal skills getting A*-B: 52%

In the ‘What can you do?’ section there are many suggestions that will be challenging for hard-pressed teachers, but always worth considering. For example (directly copied from the report):

• Develop specific pedagogies for spatial learning which, in turn, will benefit all learners
• Offer differentiated learning so pupils can choose how they do a task and do not suggest there is only one approach that is ‘correct’