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Noisy classrooms affect students’ performance


by Emma Lee-Potter


Secondary school pupils working in noisy classrooms with poor acous- tics perform worse academically and find it harder to concentrate, a study has shown. Previous research has found that


primary school children perform worse in classrooms with poor acoustics but this is the first to show that it affects older pupils too. The Identifying a Sound


Environment for Secondary Schools (ISESS) initiative is a three-year research project to investigate how


acoustic conditions affect teaching and learning in secondary schools. The full ISESS report is due


to be published next year but pre- liminary findings have shown that many pupils and teachers expe- rience unnecessary noise levels because of badly designed class- rooms or inadequately insulated rooms that fail to block outside noise. The study, conducted by aca-


demics from London South Bank University, the University of Salford and the Institute of Education, looked at how secondary pupils across England performed in the


Food for Life project in race to find new funding


A healthy food project which has reached 3,600 schools is facing an uncertain future as its funding runs out. The Food for Life Partnership


(FLP) has seen 2,800 schools adopting its healthy menus and has helped drive take-up of free school meals, according to an evaluation of the project published this month. However, the FLP’s current fund-


ing, a Lottery grant of £16.9 million, will run out in December 2011, after which the future is uncertain. And at a time when local author-


ity school meal budgets are being cut, Libby Grundy, director of the FLP, says the impact on childhood obesity could be “dramatic”. She explained: “The (evalua-


tion) evidence shows that our pro- gramme has made a positive differ- ence to improving diet and this in turn is having a knock-on effect on behaviour and attainment. “Yet, just as the programme looks


as if it has reached the tipping point in terms of making a cultural shift, cuts to local authority school meal budgets – and an uncertain funding future for the programme itself – could undo all the good work.” An FLP spokeswoman told


SecEd this week that in light of evaluation evidence, they were con- fident that the work will continue past December, adding that they are in talks with a number of organisa- tions in a bid to find new sources of funding. The FLP was founded in 2003


and comprises four charities – the Soil Association, Health Education Trust, Garden Organic, and the


St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road Herne Hill, London SE24 0PB www.markallengroup.com


Focus on Food Campaign. More than 3,600 schools are members of the programme, which encour- ages them to work towards Bronze, Silver and Gold awards, while 2,800 schools now serve Food for Life menus, which are seasonal and freshly prepared with no hydrogen- ated fats or battery eggs. An evaluation of the project


by the University of the West of England (UWE) and Cardiff University found that its work to link practical food education with quality school dinners has led to a better family diet, improved aca- demic performance and behaviour. It also found that free school


meal take-up has risen by 21 per cent over a two-year period in participating secondary schools. Furthermore, 67 per cent of schools felt the programme had an impact on their Ofsted report in terms of pupils’ personal development and wellbeing. Professor Kevin Morgan of


Cardiff University’s School of City and Regional Planning, said: “This research shows that ending the FLP scheme because of the current short-term emphasis on cost-cutting would have a negative long-term impact on public health and the public purse.” The findings of the report are to


be presented to children’s minister Sarah Teather at a conference host- ed by the FLP and Faculty of Public Health in London on June 22. For a copy of the report, visit


http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/14456/ and for more information on the FLP, visit www.foodforlife.org.uk


Climate challenge: The Cape Farewell expeditions to the Arctic have led to the creation of a number of powerful works of arts around issues of climate change


Research trip up for grabs


A one-day sailing trip carrying out scientific research with a lead- ing oceanographer is up for grabs for students in an environmental competition. The National Maritime


Museum (NMM), based in Greenwich, London, is running a competition challenging stu- dents to produce a work of art – a painting, a poem, a sculpture or a short film – expressing their thoughts on the environ- ment and how to tackle climate change. The competition is open to students from key stages 2, 3


and 4 with winners being selected from each category. The winners will then receive a one-day sail- ing trip with oceanographer Dr Simon Boxall from the National Oceanography Centre. The competition is based on


the NMM’s High Arctic exhibition, which opens this summer and is aimed at encouraging the public to question their relationship with the world around us. The exhibition has been put


together by Cape Farewell, which has spent the last 10 years bringing artists and scientists together on sailing expeditions to the High


Arctic, and Matt Clark from United Visual Artists. Charlie Keitch, formal learning


officer at the NMM, said: “The goal of the competition is to inspire reflection and we’re really looking forward to seeing what the UK’s school children come up with. The High Arctic exhibition is based on a scientific expedition to the Arctic, but environmental issues affect us all, right on our doorstep.” Schools must register interest


for the competition by August 31 and the deadline for entries is October 21. Visit www.nmm. ac.uk/higharctic/competition


New minister vows to raise standards in Northern Ireland


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Northern Ireland’s new education minister is vowing to raise standards and deliver improved outcomes for those leaving secondary education. John O’Dowd told members of


the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) in Northern Ireland that since becoming minister he has been engaging with educational partners across the spectrum. Classroom practitioners, he said,


play a pivotal role in the educa- tion system. A top priority dur- ing the next four years, he added,


2 New minister: John O’Dowd


was delivering superior results for young people. Recent figures reveal continued


improvement in the achievement of secondary school leavers at both GCSE and A level. Mr O’Dowd said such success should be celebrated but added that the figures are also a reminder of the major disparities entrenched within the North’s system. He told the ATL conference:


“Young people from disad- vantaged communities are half as likely to achieve five good


GCSEs including English and maths. They are more than half as likely to achieve two or more A level passes and to enter higher education. “The gulf is wide, it is damag-


ing to our young people and our economy, and it is unacceptable.” During his time on the Stormont


education committee, Mr O’Dowd visited schools already putting the improvement policy, Every School a Good School, into practice. He continued: “Those schools


show that, where we have effec- tive leadership and high aspirations, high quality teaching and learning, child-centred provision, and strong links with parents and the commu- nity, it is possible to achieve good outcomes for our most disadvan- taged young people.” Earlier, Mr O’Dowd met with


his counterpart from the Republic of Ireland, Ruairi Quinn, to discuss issues of mutual interest, includ- ing work to improve literacy and numeracy.


SecEd • June 9 2011


classroom when exposed to high and low levels of noise. Dr Daniel Connolly, a psychol-


ogy research fellow at the Institute of Education, told SecEd: “What we tend to find is that students themselves don’t really appreci- ate the negative effect that noise and reverberation can have on their learning, but in fact it affects their ability to concentrate and not get tired and also slows down their processing speeds.” In the ISESS tests, researchers


looked at two age groups – 11 to 13-year-olds and 14 to 16-year- olds.


Half of each age group listened


to 50 decibels of noise through headphones as they completed computer tasks measuring their reading comprehension, numeracy, working memory and speed of processing. The other half were exposed to


70 decibels of noise (this is slightly louder than hearing another per- son’s voice a metre away during a normal conversation.) The follow- ing week, the two groups swapped over. The noise the groups heard in


their headphones represented both the minimum and maximum levels


of classroom chatter recorded in secondary schools while students are working individually. The researchers found that the


11 to 13s and the 14 to 16s both performed worse when they had to work with more noise. But the performance of the older group in noisy conditions was worse than the younger group’s performance in quieter conditions. The research team has also


asked secondary pupils and teach- ers across England to complete written questionnaires about noise levels in schools and is in the proc- ess of analysing these.


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