BESA CORNER


This month, in our ongoing feature highlighting the work of members of the UK education suppliers’ trade body BESA, we hear from ACCESS EDUCATION and SAM LEARNING.


Encouraging women in STEM: the importance of representative GCSE content


Comment by AMANDA CLEGG, author for Access Education GCSEPod and a former science teacher.


Over recent years, there has been a push towards improving diversity in the school curriculum, an important issue to ensure all students are well represented within their GCSE courses. However, as new studies consistently show, there is still a long way to go.


Research published by End Sexism in Schools (ESIS) recently revealed that


only two per cent of GCSE students study a book or novel written by a female author.


The noticeable lack of gender diversity in the English Literature curriculum naturally raises the question of how representation fares across other subject areas - and what the consequences of this are upon students’ development and career goals.


Science in particular has been historically viewed as a ‘boys subject’, which both teacher’s own anecdotes and research shows has an impact on female secondary students’ aspirations. There remains a pressing need to readdress stereotypes - from the very start.


A large part of this means ensuring all students can see themselves within the GCSE content they engage with on a daily basis, just as they’re beginning to visualise their futures.


The importance of being seen


If students can see someone who looks like them already accomplishing their dream, they can be inspired to picture the same opportunity for themselves. This is the wisdom of one teacher, Yuki Hazelwood, who draws upon her own experience as a pupil to express how important it is for students to see themselves in the classroom.


As we all know, the pandemic took students out of in-person teaching, leading them to engage more than ever before with online resources. Three years later, digital tools to supplement both classroom and independent learning, like GCSEPod’s video revision bites, have only grown in popularity. With this comes an opportunity, and a responsibility, to include greater diversity in visual GCSE content, helping students to - quite literally - see themselves in their learning. Women in STEM


In the past, lots of older textbooks and revision guides showed only men in lab coats. Shockingly, in 2022, analysis found chemistry textbooks still portrayed men as scientists while women performed domestic duties. This issue should not be understated. In the real world, just 24% of the STEM workforce were women in 2019, up from only 21% in 2016. Part of this can be attributed to how women see themselves fitting into STEM from a young age. By subliminally reinforcing roles as gendered, textbooks aren’t just teaching students content, they are also instilling limits to those who are not featured.


There is still lots of progress to be made. For example, while girls from a BAME background are more likely to study STEM subjects at A-Level, black Caribbean women and girls are underrepresented in STEM at every stage of the pipeline.


Inclusive content


There is still room for optimism however. Many movements are already working towards supporting black and other women in STEM from a young age - for example, the Stemettes, a social enterprise for girls in STEM. Equally, modern resources are striving to represent all, with GCSEPod leading the way as the first education publisher to launch a collection of diverse texts celebrating authors of African and Caribbean heritage. This content remains free for all to use.


In addition to helping students see themselves, it is also important for them to hear themselves in video content. GCSEPod ensures to employ voiceover artists from a diverse range of backgrounds and with a range of accents. In 2023, there is no reason why GCSE content can’t be inclusive of all students. Taking these steps will help to engage all students, while encouraging them to realise and achieve their goals.


May 2023 “


Pendle Vale College - using A.I. driven approaches to teaching and learning to protect staff workload and drive results


Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges in education today, innovate teaching and learning practices, and


accelerate progress.Here, OLIVER HANDLEY, Headteacher at Pendle Vale College, shares how his students have been taking advantage of SAM Learning’s latest A.I. features to protect staff workload and drive results.


The challenge


“To improve the progress rates of underperforming high ability students already achieving grade 7s.


The strategy


“We have a focus on our more able students and we want to increase the attainment and progress rates specifically of our high ability Y11 students. Our strategy started with our Associate SLT member meeting with every student and their parents to make them aware of their potential, highlight the challenges, and outline the support we would put in place. Subsequently, a group of students were placed on a report card for each subject.


“The key for most of them was just hard work! Many of the students and their families knew they needed to be working and revising but didn’t know where to put their energies. We created an intervention group on SAM Learning and the Associate SLT provided a breakfast club to ensure the students had space and time to work. His task was really straightforward: he told the students, ‘I’ll be here on Wednesday morning and you’ll be doing this work!’ The students completed work in English, Maths and the three Sciences, work also set by SAM Learning’s A.I.


“This is really simple - the work is either done or not done, SAM learning marks it, provides feedback and is adaptive. It is really easy to monitor and easy to measure giving high levels of accountability to all. SAM Learning’s A.I. targets their areas for improvement and the A.I. also extends them. It is now setting work in these areas too!


The impact


“These are grade 7 students. They are not on my HoDs ‘to do’ list to increase grades meaning that they can concentrate on key students at other grade boundaries. Improving these grades is a hard thing to achieve, our strategy is overseen by an Assoc. SLT who is a PE teacher. No teacher can be a specialist in every subject and to get the higher marks, specialism is needed. We did this from Sept 2022 to Dec 2022 and their grades improved by P8 +1.2!”


SAM Learning are thrilled to announce the latest development of their A.I. for students to encourage 30 minutes of adaptive learning on SAM Learning a week. This is important as EEF/FFT research shows students achieve 2 GCSE grades better with 30 minutes a week.


www.samlearning.com www.education-today.co.uk 15


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