VIEWS & OPINION Unlocking the potential of
every child in the classroom Comment by GRAHAM COOPER, Chief Marketing Officer at Juniper Education
One thing that every senior leader shares, whatever the size, shape and location of their school, is the desire to help each child achieve their full potential. However, with the focus on helping children catch up with the learning they have missed during the
pandemic, teachers and senior leaders don’t have hours of time to spend crunching through attainment data to find the answers. What schools need now is targeted insight to help them support pupil progress. Frazer Westmorland, headteacher of Mundella Primary School, told us how he finds out which measures have the greatest effect on pupils’ achievement.
Knowing what makes a difference
“As a headteacher, it’s impossible to know, ahead of time, whether investing in a particular intervention or support scheme, or recruiting a specialist teacher, will have the maximum impact upon pupils’ achievement,” says Frazer.
“If we could predict where targeted support – say a termly intervention for pupils with SEN or a six-week revision club – would have the greatest impact on pupils’ progress, we could make good and timely decisions about when and where to put support in place.”
Rather than looking at prior achievement, Frazer needed a simple way to identify existing gaps and prevent issues from holding children back.
Looking into the future
“We wanted a realistic picture of what individual children and groups were capable of achieving today, but also in the weeks and months ahead says Frazer.
“It’s important that we keep pupils progressing towards their learning objectives for each curriculum area.
“With a future view of every child’s potential in every subject, teachers can easily spot children who are coasting and act to help them achieve more. With this information we can uncover issues that might otherwise be missed too, such as a child or group smashing their learning targets in English and maths but starting to fall behind in other areas.”
More tailored interventions
Having targeted insight has changed the approach to supporting pupil progress at Mundella Primary School.
“We have a system now that uses pupils’ historical attainment data, so we can ‘model’ the predicted outcome of putting an effective intervention in place. It is possible to run various scenarios on screen, in minutes, to see what difference they could make to the percentage of pupils achieving their learning targets.
“We can now identify the actual children who would benefit from a targeted programme and plot the potential uplift in achievement of a class, year group or the whole school right there on the screen.”
A greater impact in less time
One of the drawbacks of capturing and analysing attainment data is the time it takes – time which would be better spent supporting the children, as Frazer explains.
“Having to constantly update pupils’ records unnecessarily is a real burden on teachers, particularly if progress has been maintained at the same level. We have changed our processes as a result and now pupil attainment data needn’t be amended if the trajectory stays the same, only when pupils deviate from being on track.
“We’ve realised the importance of having the latest school wide information on groups at our fingertips too, such as pupils with special needs, pupil premium or gifted and talented so that school leaders, subject coordinators and teachers can plan effectively and respond rapidly.” With a new approach to data, Frazer is able to monitor children’s performance in all subjects, and provide targeted support. No two schools face the same challenges but every school can gain insight from their data to help their children achieve to the very best of their abilities.
Developing pupil
voice in your school Comment by MILENKA STEVENS, content editor at The Key.
Every child has the right to respect for their views, and encouraging pupils to engage in school
decision-making can be an important way of embedding this. Many schools follow the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to embed pupil voice in their schools. The UNCRC is a document that outlines children's rights in various contexts, and underpins all work carried out by UNICEF. Although you're not required by law to comply with the UNCRC, it's good practice to do so.
So, how can you make the most of pupil voice in your school? Here are 5 core principles to keep in mind: ● Have a clear commitment to pupil participation – for example, by working to generate support for pupil participation across your school, and sharing the benefits to make sure everyone understands why involving pupils is important.
● Support pupil participation – you could provide training and support for your pupils to make sure they can participate effectively, for example.
● Provide all pupils with equal opportunity to be involved – make sure you take age, maturity and understanding into account when deciding how to support children in participating.
● Continually review pupil participation – set out clear rationale and success criteria, and regularly review how well they're being met.
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● Meet quality standards for working with children – for example, agree rules on confidentiality, and data protection in line with the law. There are many different approaches you can consider when it comes to making your pupils heard. Setting up a school council can be a good first step. It not only allows pupils the opportunity to be heard, but gives you a first-hand insight into aspects of daily life in your school, like learning and socialising. To make it effective, you'll need to commit to embedding ideas and implementing changes on issues brought to you - whether that's building it into your school development plan or trialling something small for a period of time.
Similarly, you could also consider creating pupil working groups on specific issues or topics, such as behaviour, community projects or environmental issues around the school.
Many schools have also successfully involved pupil voice in recruitment. You could ask pupils to share the qualities they look for in a teacher or teaching assistant (TA), for example, or seek pupil input in putting together interview questions. It could also form part of an applicant's interview process where they have an 'interview' with a small group of pupils. This gives pupils the opportunity to have their say on who's going to be in charge of their learning. It's also a great way to see how applicants interact with pupils, and engage with pupil issues in the school. Finally, introducing a culture of peer support can be another important tool. You could have a buddy or mentor system with relevant training, or peer mediators to help with playground disputes or disagreements between friends. Similarly, older pupils could take on a 'tutor' role and help younger ones with reading or writing.
Of course, these are just some of the ways you can start to encourage pupil voice in your school - there are lots of other techniques to try. It’s worth taking the time to explore what options work best for your school and pupils, so that pupil voice is embedded across all areas of school life.
January 2022
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