ONE SIZE FITS ALL?
One size fits all? Is it possible to cater to the needs of all pupils?
In June, Ofsted published ‘The Most Able Students’, a report in which Sir Michael Wilshaw said that non-selective secondary schools had to do more to ensure that students with the potential to achieve highly, did so. Alan Cowley takes a look at how SBMs can influence the debate about standards in their schools. 18
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ONE SIZE FITS ALL?
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he development of any major new strategy requires a wholeschool approach and as such SBMs need to give thought to the impact that the individualisation of education may have on budget, staffing, resources and training. Here are three ways in which SBMs can influence the debate about standards: 1. The Use of Data For more years than I care to think about, I’ve been arguing that in their bid to meet headline A* - C GCSE targets, many schools have needed to pay more heed to the requirements of high achieving students. But in such a target-driven culture we shouldn’t be surprised
that when the spotlight is switched so rapidly from one different community or group to another by government and Ofsted, educationalists act like mesmerised dogs chasing the torchlight across the wall. By using the % of pupils achieving A* - C at GCSE as a measurement of academic success, it was obvious that there would be a huge temptation to focus on leveraging pupils through the C grade; in the eyes of some it became the all-important task. This strategy inevitably focused additional support on those few pupils at the ‘C/D borderline’ in some schools; however this apparently led to a feeling of complacency in schools
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where naturally talented pupils succeeded in spite of the teaching. The focus is now falling on high-achieving pupils. A target-driven education system can only be driven by data-gathering technology, and data-gathering technology can monitor any parameters we choose. The simple truth is that we want all pupils to do as well as they can and, where possible, to exceed expectation. So when that expectation is fixed at every stage of their education by standardised tests and progress predicted by statistics acquired from millions of pupils over decades – why are we still looking at groups and not at the individual?
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ONE SIZE FITS ALL?
Who processes the achievement data within your school? Is their expertise sufficient to make suggestions to improve the way that pupil progress is monitored? When I talk to teachers, their most common complaint is about ‘data’. Many teachers see the regular data trawls they have to endure as being beyond the pale, but this is only because they see ‘data’ as being impersonal; especially when they see their role as working with a class of individuals. I know of schools where management information systems were set to alert teachers when pupils at the C/D borderline were not making sufficient progress towards and beyond that line. Why should it not be set to alert us to all pupils who are falling short of their targets? The continuing development of admin and support teams has led to the recruitment of some very highly qualified and specialised personnel. School MIS systems are so incredibly complex that in all probability there are only a handful of people in even the largest of schools who know the potential of the whole system. It could well be that those making the decisions about the tracking and monitoring of pupil progress
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within your school do not fully understand the possibilities. Who processes the achievement data within your school? Is their expertise sufficient to make suggestions to improve the way that pupil progress is monitored? If it is, do they feel able to contribute suggestions? Use the resources and expertise you already have more fully.
What systems do you have in place to ensure that subject teachers are on the case, picking up on any underperformance? 2. The Users of Data Inevitably, when measuring targets set against GCSE performance, this debate seems to hinge around secondary education. So what systems do you have in place to ensure that subject teachers are on
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the case, picking up on any underperformance? What support systems do you have to help them in that task? Too often within large secondary school campuses, canny pupils know how to avoid teachers from day to day, evading pre-arranged meetings with busy teachers. This is when management information systems can work for the teachers. Talk to your MIS provider about how systems can be adapted so that pupils cannot become mysteriously ‘doublebooked’ for those all-important meetings that inevitably take place during the lunch hour. Let the technology do the work to alert heads of department, form tutors and pastoral leaders that individual pupils are falling behind. What policy do you have in place about how underperformance is identified and who is responsible for following it up? And who else knows? In my experience one of the greatest allies of individual underperformance in secondary schools is the fact that teachers do not often have access to a pupil’s performance in other subject areas. It can be a very rude awakening when you see
ONE SIZE FITS ALL?
a pupil’s performance in your subject compared with their performance in others. Whilst not wishing to swamp teachers with too much data, do they currently receive enough data to know how well pupils are performing for them? Whilst occasional dips in performance in any one subject are normal, underperformance across the board is often an indication of far more serious problems. When teachers only have access to their performance data associated with their subject it is not easy to spot these crisis moments. What systems do you have in place for the early identification of underperformance across the board? Who is responsible for picking up pupils who are falling behind? Is the system working? If your current strategy makes life easy for teachers it will be used. 3. How effective is your pastoral system? One of the strengths of Ofsted is that they challenge what we in schools take for granted. Just because we happen to have been doing something in a certain way for years doesn’t mean that it is the most effective way of doing it. Do our structures and systems fit the requirements of all the pupils in our school? How do we know? Pastoral systems tend to evolve within schools. Has the system within your school kept up with the needs of your pupils? A number of years ago, I was booked to present some sessions on Parental Engagement by the SSAT in a package that toured the country offering insight into my area of expertise, and Vertical Tutoring
where the presentation s SLT Discussion Point was delivered by the ss and monitor the progre guru of VT, Peter 1. How do you track ol? Barnard. Peter of all pupils in your scho always said that inadvertently u have a strategy that yo Do 2. the strength of r than individuals? monitors groups rathe any school’s S to full capacity of your MI pastoral 3. Are you using the s? system could monitor and track pupil ke be measured r been as d how your Has your data manage 4. very easily by nitoring could stem of tracking and mo sy nt rre cu how pupils effective? be improved to be more referred to their rk in ur and support policy wo time with their 5. Does your behavio personal tutor. practice? If they called it system support How does your pastoral 6. ‘Tutor Time’ it’s a learning? strong indication that some form of meaningful relationship-building was taking place between the tutor and pupils. If however personal tutor is key. It provides they called it ‘Registration’, an opportunity for pupils to build it was usually a sterile boxa relationship with a mentor ticking interaction that many who can guide them through pupils could see little point in their education and gain an attending. insight into their performance across the board. Too frequently, Many schools insist on using schools fail to recognise the this valuable time with pupils strength and value of this role purely as a way of registering and make the mistake of thinking them. How many times does this that academic progress is best happen in secondary schools supported through increasing where every teacher also takes time for academic study at the a register at the start of each expense of ‘pastoral’ time. lesson? We know that pupils Within secondary education are at their most attentive at where teachers are largely the start of the school day and subject-based specialists, so why not start the day with we need to provide adequate the first lesson using that as training for all teachers on how the registration? Breaking with to be an effective tutor. tradition is never easy but if you want a measure of whether or I’ve seen many good pastoral not you should change from systems wrecked by the a form tutor registration first introduction of impersonal thing in the morning to one of ‘pastoral programmes’, which registering in the first lesson, become a meaningless set of look at the number of pupils activities undertaken by the you have who regularly arrive in pupils with the minimum of school late. The most common teacher input. response from pupils arriving ‘late’ is that they don’t consider The most effective I’ve seen was it important as they’re not in Peter Barnard’s former school missing anything. Peter placed where the ‘pastoral programme’ his tutor time mid-morning. was simply the school calendar. Within the vertical tutoring tutorial The role of the form tutor or structure were 2/3 pupils from
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ONE SIZE FITS ALL?
At the heart of [the SBM’s] role should be the requirement to develop a system that meets the needs of the pupils [Vertical Tutoring] provides positive role models and increases the aspirations of those pupils with no history of further education within their families each of years 7,8,9,10,11,12 & 13 – giving what he considers to be the optimum number of pupils within a tutor group – 21. Throughout the school year different events would take centre stage from Year 9 Option choices, to Year 10 work experience, to Year 11 GCSE exams, and Year 13 applications to universities. All members of the group would be involved in the discussions so that, in the examples I’ve just given, the pupils who have already been through the experience would be able to advise those for whom it was imminent. Another added advantage of this
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system within the 11-18 school is that throughout every child’s secondary school education they are in permanent contact with older pupils who are going on to university. This not only provides positive role models and increases the aspirations for those pupils with no history of further education within their families, but potentially for high achieving pupils who should be aiming for Russell Group universities. An obvious problem associated with this approach is that there are just not enough teachers in a secondary school to allocate one for every 21 pupils. Peter therefore introduced an expectation that all adults employed by the school could act as form tutors which brought a range of fresh approaches and experience to the pupils. All meetings with parents were conducted by the form tutor and so progress reports and problems were channelled through that individual so that parents had the confidence of knowing that someone knew their child extremely well. We all know some pupils effectively get lost in large groups. Peter’s magic 21 provides a number that he found enabled all pupils to feel included and know
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that they mattered. But he had to adapt standard practice to ensure that he was putting the pupils first. Perhaps your school is not ready to consider a restructuring of the pastoral system to look at the Vertical Tutoring system, but how are your support staff employed during form period time in your school? With many schools putting an emphasis on the recruitment of non-teaching staff as pastoral managers it is inevitable that many teachers no longer see their role as providing pastoral support. How can systems in your school be adapted to ensure that all pupils are being supported whilst the paper work associated with the pastoral care of large groups does not become an unwieldy burden? The role of the School Business Manager is becoming ever more complex but at the heart of that role should be the requirement to develop a system that meets the needs of the pupils. Without the pupils you have no school. They are the school. You should always have an eye on how you manage their business. n