Views & Opinion
Prioritizing early language skills can change the story of children’s low academic attainment
Comment by Bob Reitemeier CBE, Chief Executive of I CAN, the children’s communication charity
The single most important thought following the research findings from Save the Children for the Read On. Get On. campaign must be for the children left behind due to poor language development. When are we going to change their story? The report confirms what I CAN and many others have been saying for years: language and communication play a crucial role in children’s academic performance and wider human development.
This affects an enormous number of children. Save the Children’s findings reveal that as many as a quarter of children in areas of deprivation do not start school with the early language skills needed for learning. Children with poor language at age five are about six times less likely to reach the expected standard in English and about 11 times less likely to reach the expected standard in maths at age 11. The report therefore provides us with new and compelling evidence on how early language development underpins and influences later academic success. At I CAN we have long called for the
importance of children’s early language skills to be recognized and prioritized. Now, we need to work together to ensure action is taken to change this situation. This should start with ensuring that we have a skilled, knowledgeable and confident workforce, who are equipped to use interventions proven to work. We support the call from Save the Children for investment in good quality early years services and support for parents. We believe the greatest impact will result from every member of the early years’ workforce gaining an understanding of the importance of children’s early language development and being equipped with the skills to support it.
We know this works from our own experience. I CAN’s interventions show that investment in evidenced language programmes, delivered by trained staff, can make a huge difference to children’s outcomes. For instance, our Early Talk Boost programme, a nine week intervention for 3-4 year olds experiencing language delay, can double the rate of progress in early language development. In Wokingham and Reading,
children’s centres, nurseries and schools have pooled their Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) budgets to invest in staff training in Early Talk Boost. Philip Armstrong, centre manager at Ambleside Children’s Centre, who coordinated the training, said, ‘On their own many settings would not have accessed the training. We believe it is crucial that children are provided with high quality support to develop their communication skills in the Early Years. Early Talk Boost has complemented the existing support we provide and provided a further opportunity to work in partnership with parents around their child’s learning and development.’
The Ambleside story shows how important the support given to early years’ staff is in developing children’s language. Without this support, far too many children are being left behind in language development which then can have a profound negative impact on other aspects of their lives. We need to do more for these children and we need to act now.
Life after levels – adjusting to the new challenges
of assessing maths at KS2 Comment by Jayne Warburton, CEO, 3P Learning, Europe and Middle East
It’s now just a matter of weeks until the May SATS for pupils in Year 2 and Year 6, which are the first to be assessed without ‘levels’. Instead individual schools will manage assessment themselves – using a ‘scaled score’ in which 100 equals the expected standard. Every pupil will receive their standardised score, alongside the average for their school, the local area and nationally. There will also be a ‘performance descriptor’ of the expected standard for KS2 pupils, with the Department for Education aiming for 85 per cent of children to reach or exceed that standard. However, as well as a certain lack of clarity about how this will all work out in practice - no one is quite sure of what the national standard of 100 actually looks like – many teachers have other concerns. These include questions about how their pupils will cope with the higher expectations of the new curriculum, where content generally has more depth and is more demanding. This demands a change of approach to teaching maths, with the increased difficulty involved requiring teachers to think differently and review the resources they are using. The new curriculum, more focused on mastery, is about deeper learning. However
March 2016
mastery and deeper learning is more challenging to assess, particularly in the context of a ‘more rigorous SATS paper. Assessment is an integral part of effective teaching and learning and good assessment support is achieved when formative and summative assessments of learning are incorporated, allowing teachers to measure progress and pupils to inform their future learning. Regular assessment activities allow pupils the opportunity to review the key ideas and concepts to check their own understanding.
Of course the best use of assessment is in raising standards. High quality assessment, linked to next steps for teaching is at the heart of any teaching resource worth its salt. Summative assessments aligned to the new NC which can automatically analyse student results in terms of curriculum expectations will be most useful here.
As the DfE stated in its document, ‘Primary Assessment and Accountability under the new national curriculum’; ‘Ongoing assessment is a crucial part of effective teaching […] providing clear information about each pupils’ strengths, weaknesses and progress towards the end of key stage expectations.”
Similarly, the Commission on Assessment without Levels states that “formative assessment is a vital part of teaching and learning and can provide teachers and pupils with useful, real time information about what needs to happen next”.
Digital resources including assessment tools can therefore be a boon. Any features which remove the need for time spent analysing a test mark-book and provide an instant snapshot of class and student will be welcomed by time-pressed teachers! But it’s vital to ensure that content is fully aligned to the new curriculum. Then all student work can be automatically marked and analysed, instantly highlighting strengths and weaknesses in relation to curriculum expectations and outcomes. Based on those results, activities that will extend or support pupil learning can be precisely targeted. Reports that provide an instant snapshot of class and student attainment and progress, with both numerical and graphical representations, are especially useful in the absence of National Curriculum levels. Reports can be exported to Excel, providing the flexibility to incorporate the results into a school’s own assessment framework.
www.education-today.co.uk 17
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