Assessment for Learning Strategy

The DCSF have released the Assessment for Learning Strategy, which follows on from the "Making Good Progress" pilot. It is intended to "support schools in using assessment information to improve and plan provision, as well as improving the quality of the assessment process itself."

“Assessment for learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there”.
- Assessment Reform Group, 2002

Key points:
- The aims of the strategy are that every child knows how they are doing what they need to improve and how to get there; every teacher is equipped to make well informed judgements about pupils attainment, understands the concept of progression and knows how to use their judgement to plan; every school has structured and systematic assessment systems; every parent and carer knows how well their child is doing.
- It highlights three aspects of assessment: day-to-day; periodic and transitional.
- £150m over three years to support schools in delivering the strategy, through the standards fund.
- Yearly targets, for the following three years.
- A timeline of roll out, with training for schools between autumn 2008 and spring 2009, which is the responsibility of the local authority.

"Social Mobility"

The Prime Minister announced a crusade on social mobility within the UK (see Downing St. news release).

Key points:

- Moving to offer nursery places to 2 year old's in the most disadvantaged communities.

- Pilots in certain areas, to give one off payments of £200 to parents who use services such as Children's Centres.

- Publish a plan for child care and early learning and reforms to how these are funded to be released later.

- Doubling the number of Teach First placements, a scheme aimed at getting the best graduates into schools serving disadvantaged communities.

- Increasing, by 10 more local authorities, the use of the Family Intervention Project, a cross government, multi-agency approach to tackle anti-social behaviour by intensive engagement of families.

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Read DCSF News Release.

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Read BBC News article.

See BBC TV News piece

Positive Leadership at school level

This research by the Audit Commission (which was blogged earlier), explored the external factors to school success, of which 6 "Key Features" were identified. One of which, "Positive Leadership at School Level" is summarised below:

Key points:

- The leadership of individual head teachers is critical in mobilising staff, pupils and the community behind the broader agenda. This level of commitment is variable across schools.

- The NCSL, Ofsted, ECM and workforce remodelling are ensuring schools need to develop schools ability to respond to the wider community needs.

- Schools partnerships with local church or other faith communities; local business or the voluntary sector can also be useful.

- Schools need to set out a clear and individual vision, incorporated within school plans, which sets out the school's role in the local area and how the school will work with the whole range of public services in support of both school and community success.

Examples of schools in Kirklees and Leeds inform the report.

External factors for school success

This Audit Commission report from November 2006 focuses on the external factors to school success, rather than the internal ones. It also offers examples of practice and tools to assess effectiveness. Drawing on research from 12 councils, serving deprived areas, the authors concentrate on regeneration and renewal; social housing; community safety; arts, sports and recreation; and youth services.

Key points:
- School improvement and renewal are inseparable issues from neighbourhood improvement and renewal, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas.
- Community safety partnerships and agencies can work with schools to help tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, both in and out of school, thus contributing to neighbourhood renewal and supporting high aspirations and educational achievement in school.
- Housing conditions affect children’s health and ability to learn; and the profile of housing stock in an area affects the intake of a whole school and very often the performance of its pupils.
- Arts, sports and recreation services can support schools in many ways. They may provide additional facilities or resources to deliver the curriculum. They may help build children’s confidence and self esteem in a different context from the classroom, and give disaffected young people a more constructive alternative to crime and antisocial behaviour.
- Making effective use of both universal and targeted youth services can help to foster more successful schools, through linking young people to wider opportunities for personal and social development, and helping to tackle the root causes of underachievement and disaffection through individual support.

Australian - Brighter Futures Intervention programme

Brighter Futures is an Australian voluntary program that provides targeted support tailored to meet the needs of vulnerable families with children aged under nine years or who are expecting a child. Brighter Futures provides families with the necessary services and resources to help prevent an escalation of emerging child protection issues. It aims to strengthen parenting and other skills to promote the necessary conditions for healthy child development and well being. This report provides a baseline of activity in the Program up to September 2007.

Key points:
- The Brighter Futures children are typically under the age of six with a strong representation in the age group of two to four years. More than a third of the children had a medical condition and half of the children had a development delay.
- Nearly half of the children were identified to require intervention for behavior problems. Most of the children also had socio-emotional problems.
- Warmth, hostile parenting and consistency were three dimensions of parenting that had been identified in previous research as having an important impact on children’s subsequent health and development. Parental warmth was identified to significantly correlate with children’s behavior score. On average, the Brighter Futures parents scored slightly higher on the hostile parenting measure than the Australian population as a whole.
- On average, the primary carers assessed themselves as a ‘better than average parent’. However 13 per cent of participants stated that they had some trouble or were not very good at being a parent, compared to less than two per cent of the overall Australian population.
- More than half of the primary carers stated that they sometimes felt that they needed support but could not get it from anyone and 37 % stated that they often or very often felt that way.
- Primary carers demonstrated high levels of satisfaction with the services and the amount of service they received from the Brighter Futures program.

Literacy progress of young children

This study by the Institute of Education followed up the impact on children’s literacy in London schools a year or more after intervention had been received. In the 2005-6 school year literacy progress was compared of the lowest achieving children in 42 schools serving disadvantaged urban areas. The children, aged around 6 years, who received Reading Recovery in their schools were compared with those in schools which provided them with a range of other interventions.

Key points:
- Those children who received Reading Recovery achieved significant gains in all assessments compared with those who did not.
- At the end of the year the literacy achievement of children who had received Reading Recovery (RR) was in line with their chronological age. The comparison group was 14 months behind with an average Reading Age of 5 years 5 months.
- At the end of Year 2 the children who had received RR in Year 1 were achieving within or above their chronological age band on all measures and were still around a year ahead of the comparison children in schools where RR was not available.
- The RR children had an average word reading age of 7y 9m, compared to 6yr 9m for the comparison children. The gender gap that was noticeable amongst low attaining comparison children, with boys lagging behind girls, was not evident in RR schools, where there was no gender gap.
- Writing achievement showed a significant difference between RR and comparison children

Person or place education policies?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have analysed government policies since 1997 to evaluate whether policies focused on the person or the place are the most effective at tackling social disadvantage (with a focus on education, employment and income, in this blog entry I focus on those relating to education). Full report

Key points:
- Policies have been equally split between place (e.g. academy schools in deprived localities) and people (e.g. early years education, curriculum change, widening participation in HE) initiatives.

- There was some evidence to suggest that sure start was improving outcomes for children and families but this was reduced for the most socially disadvantaged families.

- The New Deal for Communities and Academies programme demonstrated a link to higher level 2 attainment (other initiatives such as the EMA, Excellence in Cities showed no discernable impact on level 2 attainment).

- AimHigher, Gifted & Talented and Excellence Challenge showed a positive link to the point score of the eight best GCSEs for children.

- The EMA and AimHigher: Opportunity Bursary showed a positive impact on FE & HE participation and retention.

- There are few policies which are targeted at people and place simultanesouly and many policies have multiple objectives.

- For Academies, success was seen to be associated with strong, consistent leadership within schools and the availability of additional resources for buildings, ICT and equipment necessary to create more positive learning environments. For of Excellence in Cities, partnerships and co-operation between – ideally – small groups of schools were identifi ed as key to achieving positive results.

Classes and groups: structures for learning

The Primary Review has produced this paper which surveys recent research to explore different school and class grouping arrangements, the factors influencing them, and their impact on pupil learning and adjustment in the primary phase.

Key points:
- There has been little transfer between research findings and wide-spread classroom application partly due to the methodological difficulty of establishing clear effects.
- Underachievement, lack of pro-school attitudes and exclusion have tended to be approached by calls for more differentiation by ability of attainment but such moves are not supported in the research literature.
- Differentiation by ability/attainment has been associated with limited access to knowledge by some pupils, domination of pedagogic practices by teachers, preferred teachers for ‘elite’ pupils and enforcement of social divisions among pupils.
- Much more effort needs to be directed to the consideration and development of classroom-based social pedagogy (including the effective use of pupil groupings).
- It is more important for teachers to prepare their pupils to work effectively together, for example in their classroom groups, and to use these within-class groups flexibly.
- When teachers put a long-term commitment (up to a year) into developing relational and other social pedagogic practices within their classrooms, pupils respond with improved attainment, classroom behaviours and pro-learning attitudes.

Children in need

This study commissioned by the DCSF explored whether data on the delivery and use of services for children in need is available, is recorded, can be accessed and could feasibly be systematically collected for the children in need census. It examined the likely quality and completeness of such data, the practical difficulties of extracting it from various management information systems (MIS) and the constraints of consent, confidentiality and data protection.

The Children in Need (CIN) Census aims to collect data on all children receiving support from Children’s Social Care Services, including children looked after, those supported in their families or independently and children subject to a Child Protection Plan. The Census provides evidence on which the DCSF can develop policy, make Spending Review bids, allocate resources to Local Authorities, understand the growth in spending on children’s services and measure their output in the National Accounts.

The CIN Census was suspended after 2005 but is being reintroduced in 2008-09. The present research was commissioned to discover whether the scope of the Census could be extended after 2009 to include some of the numerous additional services used by Children in Need, including those provided by or in partnership with education, youth justice, Connexions, health services and the voluntary sector.

Key points:
- This study identified and drew up working definitions for 11 additional services accessed by children in need, five of which are recommended to be included in the CIN census as a priority: Children with Disabilities; Family Support; Early Years; Special educational Need and Youth Justice.
- The principal problem is not the definitions of the services, but the myriad different ways in which the services may be named, commissioned, paid for and delivered, even within the same authority, and hence the lack of uniform recording and storage of data.
- Issues of consent and confidentiality will significantly impede most data collection from outside Children’s Social Care, but especially from health-related services such as CAMHS.
- It will not be easy to collect uniform child-level census data on most additional services and it may be necessary to consider alternative ways of collecting data to explain expenditure on these services.
- It is possible to determine that a service was provided, but very difficult to obtain an accurate measure of the volume of service provided and the cost incurred.
- The census definition of ‘Children in Need’ may need to be revised, in line with the Children Act 1989, to include the increasing number of vulnerable children accessing additional services from local authorities without a formal referral to Children’s Social Care, sometimes as a result of assessment under the Common Assessment Framework. An even wider population of children access preventive services partly or wholly funded by Children’s Social Care. The question is: should these services and these children be included in the CIN Census?
- Changes to the CIN Census after 2008-09 should be phased in gradually, giving time for consultation and for small-scale pilots to test the new provisions. Experience of implementing electronic data collections suggests that those which require changes to MIS require at least two years to implement.

Child poverty and maltreatement

This NSPCC report draws on incidence studies (number of new cases within a time period) and prevalence studies (proportion of the population affected by maltreatement). The authors are keen to note that poverty does not cause maltreatment and that many parents in poverty do excellent jobs at raising their children, however the evidence is clear that a link between poverty and maltreatement exists:

"We have found that different measures of material deprivation remain independently predictive of child maltreatment. This includes factors that may refer to neighbourhood characteristics, such as the housing tenure, or overcrowding in the home, as well as more individual measures such as car ownership. Poverty in all its manifestations is damaging to children’s well-being”

Key points:
- There is an association between socio-economic status, financial problems in the family and parental child maltreatment, though it is much stronger with physical and emotional maltreatment and absence of physical care than with either sexual abuse outside the family or absence of supervision.
- Compared to young professional respondents, young people working in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs were three times more likely to have suffered serious physical abuse, and ten times more likely to have experienced a serious absence of care in childhood; compared to respondents in higher education, they were twice as likely to have experienced such neglect.
- There is a ‘clustering’ of children on child protection registers in deprived areas of cities.
- Generally, stronger links are found with neglect and physical abuse, while the link with sexual and emotional abuse is much weaker.
- Correlation does not establish cause. There are specific problems in attributing cause in child abuse. The causative pathways are complex with many inter-related variables at work and disentangling the relative influence of different variables is problematic.
- The most widely used and accepted theoretical perspective for explaining the relationship between poverty and maltreatment focuses on stress. It is argued that the multitude of factors associated with poverty and social deprivation, especially when compounded by drug misuse or mental health problems, negatively impact on parenting by increasing vulnerability to stress.
- In order to better safeguard and support children and families living in poverty, more awareness and understanding of the impacts of financial hardship and the different forms of adversity that families are living in need to be recognised if their needs are to be effectively met.

School bullying

This paper examines bullying and its impact on young people’s health and well being, and the significance of family relationships in dealing with bullying behaviour. Created by the Australian government it is a short summary of major research on this subject.

Key points:
- The paper explores school based bullying, peer bystanders, the importance of the family as well as suggesting anti-bullying strategies, building well-being and building positive relationships with families.

Employment based training - Australia

This paper by the Australian government, examined two industries (process manufacturing and child care) in attempt to determine the optimum mixture to ensure effective employment based training. The authors found the literature to be consistent with their own case studies.

Key points:

- The Australian arrangements bring many benefits but are also held back due to inconsistent regulatory arrangements, non-compliance by employers and registered training organisations, poor audit processes, variations in the interpretation and practice of competency-based training, and wages and awards.

- What is becoming apparent is the need for a compendium of models, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

- Analysis of successful features in past, current and emerging models of employment-based training highlighted a set of fundamentals for effectiveness. They should be pedagogically sound; lead to quality skill formation; have positive outcomes for both individuals and the enterprises; function effectively; be sustained over time.

- The strength of employment-based training, in pedagogical terms, lies in the provision of experiential learning in workplaces that complements experiences in educational institutions. The five main elements which make this an effective approach to developing vocational competence are experiences of the vocational practice; the duration of the learning contract; expert support; link to formal education; assessment and certification.

- They suggest five models, which are detailed below (click on image to enlarge)

CBI calls for re-think on diploma's

The CBI have called on the government to rethink their "over-ambitious" plans for the roll out of diplomas. The CBI state that they support the idea of diploma's in relation to vocational subjects (such as catering or engineering) but that to create diploma's to replace GCSE and A-level is not necessary. They also call for a simple grading system (two levels of award).



Click on image for link to BBC News coverage

Leadership professionals in primary schools

This paper, part of the ongoing Primary Review, examines the professional status of primary school teachers and leaders, but is mostly applicable to all teachers.

Key Points:
- The concept of ‘teacher leadership’ has emerged in England, elsewhere it is more familiar; in the USA and Canada, for example, ‘teacher leadership’ is an accepted form of leadership activity where it has been demonstrated that the forms of teacher leadership and teacher collaboration have contributed towards school improvement and that leadership in Norwegian schools is almost entirely characterised by collaboration and team effort.
- Within English primary schools, however, the construct of ‘teacher leadership’ appears beset with a number of difficulties. A significant factor hampering its development is the difficulty of viewing teachers as leaders within a hierarchical school system where leadership responsibilities are clearly delineated.
- There has been surprisingly little academic interrogation of the NCSL. Work that has been undertaken has included tracing its historical development, looking at its international role, considering its organisational features plus trying to assess its likely. Whilst useful in their way such studies have had a mutual tendency to view the NCSL as a largely beneficial development.

Primary Teachers professional development

The Primary Review have published this paper which examines issues around professional development and leadership development in primary schools. The authors also set the historical context of teacher training and CPD.

Key points:
- There is an inadequate knowledge base on CPD resulting in a lack of facts about the scale of provision, who does what, costs, numbers on courses, how the considerable sums now spent on CPD are actually spent and how value-for-money is measured.
- The evidence base is very diverse and fragmented, and usually grounded in individual self-report which generally relates solely to the quality of the CPD experience. Much of the research occurs summatively, after the CPD experience, rather than formatively, and evaluation processes are not sophisticated enough to track multiple outcomes, both intended and unintended, and different levels of impact.
- Where outcomes are reported, the relationship between teacher, school and pupil benefits are not unpicked.
- Head teachers are more satisfied than teachers that CPD is relevant, they are also more likely to have engaged in a variety of CPD.
- Primary school teachers are more positive about CPD than their secondary colleagues.
- Features of worthwhile CPD across all the studies drawn upon were that it should be focused, well structured, presented by people with recent knowledge and including provision for active
learning, and that it was relevant and applicable to school/classroom settings. However, notions of what constitutes relevance differ. Negative feelings were especially associated with ‘one size fits all’ standardised CPD provision which did not take account of teachers’ existing knowledge, experience and needs.
- Research has established the effectiveness of CPD where teachers have ownership over their
professional development and scope for identifying their own CPD focus.
- Collaborative CPD interventions such as peer support, observation with feedback, the use of external expertise in school-based activity and professional dialogue have been found to be beneficial for teachers and pupils.

USA: School Challenge

This USA report by Mass Insight examines why school turnaround strategy in the USA is failing and suggests a comprehensive plan for action to address schools which are consistently under-performing.

Key points:
- Comprehensive turnaround will be most effective when it is actively initiated by districts and schools in response to state requirements and with state support.
- Turnaround is essentially a people-focused enterprise. States, districts, schools, and outside partners must organize themselves to attract, develop, and apply people with skills to match the needs of struggling schools and students.
- States must create a visible, effective agency that – like turnaround schools themselves – is free from normal bureaucratic constraints and has a flexible set of operating rules that allow it to carry out its mission.
- Failing schools need skilled outside assistance to mount a comprehensive, sustained turnaround initiative. That will require a far stronger resource base of partners than the patchwork of individual consultants (mostly retired educators) now assisting with intervention in most states.
- High performing, high poverty schools exhibit three overarching characteristics. Together, they make up what the report calls the Readiness model – a set of strategies that turnaround efforts should emulate: readiness to learn, readiness to act and readiness to teach.

The Institute of Public Policy Research have produced this report looks at early years pay, profession and professionalisation as a key way to address poverty. The authors state that the early years workforce is low paid (£6.80 p/h) and consists of 98% women. Hence, early years employment can not only greatly assist service users escape poverty but also directly assist those staff in the sector.

Key points:
- The low wages paid in the sector will limit potential to ensure high skills exist in the workforce, often reinforced by social status.
- The lack of staff with level 3 qualifications (currently just 7% of the workforce) limits potential for increased earnings in the sector and the lack of career progression restricts demand for higher skills.
- The current process of professionalising the early years workforce is alienating practitioners and skewing efforts to drive up the quality of services. This is manifested in complaints about the dominance of paperwork over direct work with children and of qualifications over broader skills and experience. These raise important questions about what makes an expert practitioner and how policy changes (such as the Early Years Foundation Stage) are being implemented.

Job Centre Plus and Children's Centres

This research by the Institute for Employment Studies for the Dept. Work & Pensions examined the relationship between Job Centre Plus and Children's Centres, as both organisations work towards their obligations of the Children's Act.

Key findings:
- Being involved early into the formation of the Children's Centre was more beneficial.
- Although there is a wide range of Jobcentre Plus services that could potentially take place in Children’s Centres, in practice, those provided are largely focused on a relatively narrow range:

1. Fairly passive and generalised information dissemination, through literature/leaflets.
2. More targeted labour market information, through vacancy boards.
3. A range of IT-based means of providing more labour market information through job points, warm phones, internet access.
4. Sponsorship of, or participation in, one-off events.
5. Adviser outreach delivering services in the Children’s Centres (although this was rare).

- The minority of Children’s Centre users who had used, or thought that they might use, Jobcentre Plus services, found the ability to do so physically convenient, culturally undemanding and non-stigmatising. They appreciated being able to approach the issues of work and benefits at their own pace and on their own terms and terrain. They also appreciated working face-to-face with a known adviser who would be responsive without forcing the pace.

Home school knowledge exchange

This study by the General Teaching Council looked at the benefits for students if parents knew more about what was happening in school and teachers knew more about what was happening at home - Home School Knowledge Exchange (HSKE).

Key points:
- There are four types of knowledge which could be exchanged:
* knowledge of the curriculum and different teaching methods
* knowledge of culture and expectations at a new school
* parents’ knowledge of their child’s personality, needs, strengths and vulnerabilities, and
* children’s knowledge of their learning preferences, passions and interests.

- There are many examples of practice and theory around ensuring knowledge is passed from school to home, but few examples of knowledge going the other way.

- Parents said they were interested in knowing more about the curriculum and the way different subjects, such as reading and mathematics, were taught.

- Helping children to learn about literacy and numeracy involved recognising that much learning in these areas takes place out of school, in every day contexts.

- The children’s parents enjoyed being able to see teaching and learning in practice, for example through video, observation or direct experience and learned a great deal about how to help their children.

- Although the activities brought a wide range of benefits, they also carried a degree of risk. Some children (and parents) might have felt exposed if they were asked to provide information about their ‘lives out of school’, and the researchers needed to be sensitive to this. Similarly, some teachers were concerned about identifying struggling children to other parents when showing video sequences etc.

Leaders may like to consider the following:
- One of the key challenges identified by the study was that HSKE activities can be time consuming and resource intensive, both in planning and delivery. But the results can be extremely positive. For example, the findings suggest that interventions concerned with personal, social and emotional areas of transfer to secondary school can have a direct impact on attainment and academic progress.
- The study identified that ‘hard to reach’ parents are certainly not a homogeneous group and that the term itself may be an artefact of the way schools are organised. Certainly, different strategies are needed to engage different parents.
- Schools were often unaware of specific details about the home lives of some individual pupils which explained for example prolonged absences or struggles in certain subject areas.
- Although the home–school activities made teachers more aware of their pupils’ home experiences of learning, the study highlighted how some teachers were more skillful than others in making use of such knowledge in their work.

It also gives examples of how knowledge can be exchanged and the implications such an exchange can have on the school and parent relationship.

Classroom inclusion: using talents

This action research report - Growing Talents for Inclusion (GTI) - uses Appreciative Inquiry in order to improve the classroom environment. Originally focused on a year 8 class, the research was expanded to primary and secondary schools.

Key points:
- Appreciative Inquiry focuses on recognising the positives that already exist within a situation, and building on these.
- The researchers also suggested that Appreciative Inquiry could be used in a range of contexts. Are there other challenges within your class that could use Appreciative Inquiry? Can you identify other talents which could be developed?
- This project focused on improving social inclusion in classes. This was done by identifying behaviours that promote inclusion.
- The dynamics of a group can be improved if there is a common purpose like the class project in GTI which involves working with the class to democratically choose a class project that the students plan and carry out themselves.

Head teachers might like to consider the following implication:
- The researchers found that Growing Talent for Inclusion helped to improve relationships within individual classes. How might appreciative inquiry play a part in focusing discussions about enhancing citizenship and emotional literacy as part of the Every Child Matters agenda in your school?

L2 & L3 Attainment

The data from the DCSF is tracking the Puplic Service Agreement to ensure consistent increases in the number of young people attaining level 2 (5 good GCSEs*) and level 3 (2 A-levels*) qualifications.
* Or equivalent.

Key points:
- 73.9% of 19yo's have level 2 qualifications.
- 48.0% of 19yo are qualified to level 3.
- Whilst closing the gap, the Yorkshire and Humber region continues to have the smallest proportion of 19yo's obtaining level 2 (69.9%, England average: 73.9%).
- For level 3 qualifications, the North East has the lowest proportion of 19yo's (41.6%, with Yorkshire and Humber on 42.8%, England average: 48.0%)

Impact of collaboration in small primary schools

This CfBT report examines the impact of collaboration across small primary schools on the development of leadership capacity. The authors point that few leadership studies focus on the distinctive needs of small schools (fewer the 120 pupils and where the head teacher has a significant teaching role). The authors also note how small schools will need to collaborate in order to fulfil the requirements of ECM and extended schools. The study is based on 72 interviews with head teachers.

Key points:
- Many of the headteachers saw school-to-school collaborative arrangements as an additional managerial burden, rather than as a strategic resource.
- Headteachers spoke almost entirely about ‘managing’ the work of collaboration and hardly ever mentioned leadership. The focus on the operational aspects, and demands, of collaboration almost completely dominated their interview contributions.
- Almost exclusively,collaboration was discussed by the headteachers in terms of the time, money and workload involved. The expanded opportunities for teaching and learning were recognised and celebrated but the headteachers’ main focus and preoccupation was the sheer hard and extra work entailed in collaborating.
- Collaboration was viewed as a way to help staff feel part of a network. However, geographical isolation was seen as a key factor in the difficulty if setting up collaborations between schools. This view was particularly expressed by new headteachers.

Attitudes to child poverty

This research summary by the Department for Work & Pensions asked 1500 adults various questions on poverty and child poverty before weighing their answers in order to determine a representative summary.

Key Points:
- The public perception of trends in child poverty is converse to the reality (public believe child poverty has risen when it has actually fallen).
- 80% of the public believe that central government has the biggest role to play in ending child poverty, with only 35% stating that individuals and local government has a role to play.
- More meaningful terminology is needed when discussing child poverty in order to better connect with the public and those on low incomes.
- There is a need to better communicate the data on and reasons for child poverty.

Peer mentoring

This pilot (supported by the DCSF) is in operation in 180 English schools and exists where one student forms a non-judgemental relationship with another pupil (mentee) for a sustained period of time, usually when the mentee is going through a transition, in order to voluntarily give support and encouragement. It is a formalised arrangement with training and support delivered by the Mentoring & Befriending Foundation.

Key points:
- Mentees were ‘pleased to have a mentor’; felt the ‘mentor was helpful; and were ‘confident there was someone to go to’.
- Mentors were ‘pleased to be a mentor’; thought it would be good for them/was good for them and felt it would be helpful to the pupils being mentored.
- 55% schools stated that ‘improved academic performance/ attainment’ was the long term aim of their peer mentoring schemes, followed by reduction in bullying (29%), improved attendance (8%) and fewer exclusions (6%).
- Evidence suggested that mentor and mentee matching seemed to be most successful when pupils were put together according to similar interests/hobbies and or similar personality characteristics.
- Programme co-ordinators in schools reported improved transitions most frequently (64%) as an outcome of the programme, and 63% thought that the programme had improved pupils’ confidence and self esteem. However, the programme was thought to have had less impact than expected on raising pupil attainment, and reducing incidences of bullying.
- Mentee expectations were high and were largely met. The vast majority were pleased at having a mentor; found their mentor helpful, and thought that the relationship with their mentor got better over time.
- 90% of mentees felt that being mentored had helped them. Mentees said that being mentored had improved their attitudes towards school; helped them attain better; and increased their confidence at school.
- Successful factors of peer mentoring programmes were: mentor enthusiasm; staff support; strong lead from school peer mentoring co-ordinator; and mentee engagement.

Personal tutors in secondary schools

This study by the University of Bath looked at the use of personal tutors to support secondary school pupils in the use of their personal development plans.

Key points:
- The quality of the personal tutoring is dependent upon the learning guide and student.
- These relationships should provide an encouraging interchange that identifies and considers strategies for learning, criteria for success and an understanding of critical self-assessment. An effective learning guide engages in a dialogue which focuses on personal goals, motivational factors and steps for achievement.
- Challenging but realistic expectations and targets should be set with clear and specific feedback given to students.

Predictors of community cohesion

With school's now having a duty to promote community cohesion (which will be inspected by ofsted from September 2008) this report by the Department for Communities and Local Government may provide a useful introduction to the context of community cohesion.

Key points:
- A person's sense of cohesion depends on factors relating to both their individual characteristics and the community in which they live.
- In most cases, ethnic diversity is positively associated with community cohesion, however, the relationship between diversity and cohesion is complicated and dependent on the type of ethnic mix in an area.
- Positive predictors of cohesion include living in an area with a broad mix of residents from different ethnic groups and having friends from other ethnic groups.
- Negative predictors include an increasing percentage of immigrants born outside of the UK, individual level disadvantage, and high levels of crime or fear of crime.
- Disadvantage undermines perception of cohesion, and this is true irrespective of the level of ethnic diversity in a community, and across all communities, but it is not the case that all deprived areas have low cohesion.
- Feeling that one has an influence on local decisions adds to community cohesion.
- People involved in volunteering have a more positive view of cohesion, are likely to feel more empowered, and form networks with individuals in their community.

Conclusions:
- The researchers' conclusions included the following:
- Individual and community level factors influence cohesion.
- Ethnic diversity is a driver in cohesion.
- Disadvantage, crime and fear of crime have a negative effect on cohesion.
- Vulnerable groups often see cohesion more negatively.
- A feeling of empowerment is important to cohesion.
- The predictors of cohesion are different for different ethnic groups.

Childhood wellbeing

The DCSF and other government departments have worked together to produce this report into childhood wellbeing by asking parents and children.

Key points:
- Although initially those taking part in the research thought the components of a happy childhood were obvious, on reflection many decided that it was an important topic which needed discussion.
- Some parents found discussions uncomfortable as they did not want to pass judgement on others and they also felt both huge responsibility and powerlessness.
- There was a lot of consensus within each discussion group and across the sample.
- Parents felt it was difficult to apply the term good childhood to childhood today as they associated the term closely with their own upbringing which was very different.
- Wellbeing was interpreted as being physically well, or having the essentials in life, rather than having a sense of nurturing. Happy childhood was another difficult term as happiness was seen as temporary; content childhood was seen as a better term.
- Both parents, children and young people recognised the 5 ECM outcomes as crucial to a content childhood. Safety was felt to be very important, economic wellbeing as not so important, and being healthy was rarely mentioned.
- The influence of family was felt to be a fundamental factor in a content childhood.
- There was also agreement on what undermined conditions for a good childhood, including, an unsafe environment, financial pressure and lack of quality family time.

School Improvement Strategy

They are coming thick and fast from the DCSF now! Alongside the National Challenge, the DCSF have also launched their School Improvement Strategy, intended for all schools in England.

The government is talking a lot about the 21st century school: a learning centre for the community where students receive personalised learning by working across professional boundaries and with parents. The ambition, it says, is to achieve this for every school.

Key points:
- Educational achievements to be measured by attainment and progress.
- There is a correlation between attainment and progress, however some schools are good at attainment and poor at progression ('coasting').
- Each school is responsible for their own improvement and will need to work with others to achieve.
- Some schools can support others and the system is to be freed to allow this to occur.
- Ensuring students leave primary school competent in English and Maths.
- A focus on the school's teaching and learning, through the school leadership, teachers, school improvement plan.
- Extension of programmes like Teach First and Transition to Teaching to ensure diversity and best talent within the school workforce.
- Teachers performance management and professional development will be linked.
- Ensuring governing bodies are fit for purpose and assisting school development.

State schools and prestigious universities

This Sutton Trust report examines the reasons behind why relatively few state schools who send a high proportion of their students to prestigious UK universities (defined using their "Sutton 13" list and the Russell Group list).

Key findings:
- Within the state-maintained sector, there are relatively few comprehensive schools which appear to send significant numbers of students to the most prestigious universities, and those which do so tend to have relatively advantaged students.
- The overall profile of students entering the case study sixth-forms is more advantaged than that of Year 7 to 11 students.
- All of the schools expressed a strong commitment to encouraging their students to progress on to university.
- Schools showed varying levels of outreach activities, often through Aimhigher and the National Academy for Gifted and Talent Youth (NAGTY).
- Having disproportionately large sixth-forms may benefit the performance of students in these particular schools.
- Links with universities were often based on personal contacts rather than a more strategic approach.
- All the schools explicitly encourage students to progress to higher education, and also emphasise the importance of sixth-form students as role models for younger students.
- The earliest that most of the schools begin to systematically address the route to university is in Year 9, around the time of deciding GCSE options.
- On entry to the sixth-form, potential Oxbridge applicants are identified, and all the schools take advantage of outreach activities from Oxford and Cambridge.
- Oxbridge applicants are given extra assistance with their application and preparation for their interview.
- Within all the schools, students receive strong direction and help with the UCAS process.
- In briefings on higher education, teachers are generally reluctant to draw attention to status differences between universities, and many students appear to have only a vague notion of status. Proximity of the university appeared to be one of the most important factors affecting a student’s decision.
- The predicted grades of ‘first generation’ HE aspirants were generally lower than those of their fellow students. Students whose parents had attended university were more likely to apply
with lower predicted grades to prestigious universities.
- A number of teachers felt that the main issue with regard to guiding student choice was students' over-aspiration.

Shared services survey

This survey by law firm, Browne Jacobson, examines the issues around shared services between social care and education.

Key points:

- Lack of resources was the main issue by those in the study: finances and human resources being the most frequently cited.

- Managers in both sectors supported the move and 88% believed that their staff also support the move towards shared services.

- IT and procurement were especially used as business cases for shared services.

- 41% are not planning to take part in any further shared services initiatives.
- 74% of respondents agree that the short term pain will be worth it in the long run.

School leadership to motivate and engage teachers

The Hay Group have released some practical steps that school leaders can take to ensure sustained levels of individual and team effectiveness. They say that there is no "magic bullet" but certain things do help.


Key points:
- Motivated employees have increased performance. They are less likely to be ill, better focused on the child's and community needs, more innovative and more likely to remain within the school.
- Inspirational leadership is the greatest motivator: 30% of organisational performance is dependent on an a motivational working climate (that is the degree of flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity and commitment from employees).
- Integrity, role modelling and authenticity of leadership is vital.
- Teachers are often highly engaged. However they can become frustrated if held back by roles that do not suit them and work environments which get in their way, resulting in high levels of motivation not being translated into outcomes for children.
- Leaders need to be clear about how an individuals contribution adds to the larger purpose.
- There should be good, timely communication and feedback.
- Talent management - that is ensuring that people's unique competencies are stretched, should be used alongside useful "HR" practices when designing jobs.
- Ensure training for all staff - the high performers and underachievers often receive most of the attention. Yet the middle group's untapped potential is also significant.

Evaluation of Education related Parenting Contracts

The DCSF have evaluated the use of Education Related Parenting Contracts, which are voluntary agreements between parents and schools or local authorities, intended to be used to assist children at risk of exclusion or who have poor attendance.

Key findings:
- Difficult to assess effectiveness due to different understanding of what the parenting contract is.
- Parenting contracts are more likely to be used for attendance than behaviour.
- Where they are used they are seen as effective in improving attendance and behaviour and the relationship with the school.
- Local Authorities reported offering a range of support to parents through their contracts. The main support was referral to parenting classes followed by referral to mental health services.
- Parent contracts tend to be used for attendance once a poor record (80%) is seen to exist. For behaviour parent contracts are introduced after other attempts (such as Pastoral Support Plan) has being tried, however there is evidence that earlier use of the parenting contract might be better here.

Growing up in rural scotland

This paper compared the lives of children in rural Scotland to their peers in urban areas. It helped me frame some thoughts about the issues facing children in rural Yorkshire.


Key points:
- Demographically, babies born in rural Scotland are more likely to be born to older, better educated parents who possess a greater amount of material goods.
- There was no significant differences in the incidence of access to health services for aspects such as low birth-weight, disability, accidents or other needs.
- Rural mothers were no less likely to be in paid employment, but they were less likely to be lone parents.

Government and child poverty

The Work & Pensions Committee (House of Commons) have been investigating child poverty in England. This paper summarises their findings.

Key points:
- If the government is committed to halving poverty by 2010-11 and eradicating it by 2020 then additional investment is required.
- The publics' perception of poverty should be challenged, as child poverty is a real issue in the UK.
- Good childcare is a key strategy as it will enable more parents back to work.
- Some groups, such as those with disabled parents or those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi are disproportionally likely to be in poverty.
- Attempts to help parents back into work are positive but need to be flexible to reflect the complexities of family life (e.g. lone parents, parents with disabled children).
- The "better off in work" credit is a positive step, but might not be sufficient to really impact on the majority intended to benefit.
- There will still be some parents who do not work (even if the government achieves the 80% employment rate) and so benefits will need to increase above inflation (as poverty is measured by the median income).

See earlier blog on the government's policy response.

Sure Start Children's Centres - the impact

The report by the DCSF gives a summary of the research undertaken into the impact the Sure Start (later named Children's Centres) have and what lessons have been learnt. Drawing on the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) research as well as ofsted and international research. A good read for anyone interested in Early Years!

The report is spilt into assessing the impact on:
- good outcomes for children
- reaching excluded and disadvantaged groups (BME, SEN-D)
- support for parents (including fathers)
- joined up working & partnership
- health
- governance, leadership, consultation
- workforce

Impact of teachers and school on primary children

This report by the DCSF investigates the way school and classroom processes affect the cognitive progress and social/behavioural development of children between the ages of 6 and 10 in primary schools in England.

Key findings:
- Both teachers’ classroom practice and overall school-level factors make a significant difference to children’s academic and social/behavioural progress after controlling for the influence of child, family and home learning environment.
- Classroom factors, (particularly overall Teaching quality and Child positivity) and Parental support have an important influence on children’s progress in Reading between 5-10. School-level factors were relatively less important for Reading.
- Progress in Mathematics, however, is relatively equally influenced by factors at classroom-level and school-level (Quality of school leadership, School communication with parents, Use of homework and school standards).
- The influence of overall Teaching quality on Reading and Mathematics is stronger than the net influence of some background factors such as gender and family disadvantage but weaker than the influence of Early Years Home Learning Environment and mothers’ qualifications.
- The influence of primary schools upon Children’s social/behavioural developmental progress appears to operate more through school-level characteristics (such as academic ethos, Use of homework and school standards and the extent of recent school Improvement since last inspection) rather than classroom-level factors.
- It is possible to classify teachers into groups according to differences in their overall Teaching quality across a range of different dimensions of classroom behaviour and practice.
- Overall Teaching quality is a significant predictor of cognitive progress for children across the ages 5-10. Children in schools where overall Teaching quality was observed to be High do significantly better in both Reading and Mathematics than those attending schools where Year 5 quality was observed to be Low.
- The overall quality of teaching as measured by the instruments had a consistent influence on children’s academic progress but not on children’s social/behavioural development.

Student Participation in schools

The Carnegie Foundation and Esmee Fairbairn produced this report which evaluates the impact student participation has on outcomes. They define participation as "involvement in a collective decision-making process with a recognisable social and/or educational outcome".

Key points:
- The review has been able to identify consensus on positive and definite outcomes from a range of participation activities, such as community involvement, school councils, and committee work.
- They found problems with the evidence base as: it is mostly perceptual; direct causation or attribution is problematic; there is generally an uncritical presentation of participation or of the quality of student input; that there is a lack of balance shown between benefits and costs; and there is little discussion of whether outcomes could be achieved in different ways
- There is an indirect link between student participation and achievement with students being happier, having greater control over their learning, enhancement of communication skills and increased self-esteem and confidence.

Effectiveness of CPD (CUREE)

This paper by CUREE was commissioned by the GTC, hoping to answer many questions around how CPD decisions are made in school and how CPD can become more "demand led".

Key points:
- while there is plenty of guidance about designing CPD around targeted student outcomes, there was little evidence about effective practice in this regard
- teachers seldom had ‘hard data’ to quantify the effects of changing practice on students, and student outcome reports about motivation or performance were often anecdotal
- the more strategic schools were developing a broad approach to the collection and evaluation of a range of evidence and one of the key factors distinguishing “the most coherent practice from the rest” was the level of ‘planning for impact’ linked to identified needs and clearly articulated intended outcomes
- Ofsted (2006) found that few schools evaluated the impact of CPD on teaching and learning effectively, largely because they failed to identify at the planning stage its intended outcomes and suitable evaluation methods
- ‘poorly developed’ evaluation of CPD tends to focus more on the inputs than the outcomes
- the creation of a collaborative learning environment for teachers is ‘the single most important factor' for successful school improvement
- schools which had designed their CPD effectively and integrated it with their improvement plans found that teaching and learning standards rose
- Schools which take a strategic approach to CPD:
• Put student learning at the heart of all professional learning
• Provide opportunities for staff to collaborate and to be proactive about their own learning
• Ensure that all staff are aware of and share the school’s approach to professional learning
• Align school, departmental and individual staff priorities and set them in the context of national and local priorities and resources
• Locate the leadership of CPD at senior management level
• Use a mix of specialist expertise and collaborative coaching
• Use a mix of whole school, departmental and individual pupil data to inform CPD decision making

Lauch of National Challenge

In March I posted on the initial ideas behind the National Challenge: an attempt to ensure that no secondary school is below 30% of it's pupils achieving 5 good GCSEs (including English and Maths) by 2011. It takes the London Challenge national (across England).

Now the full details are out, which I summarise below, before offering links to online sources.

Key points:
- The aim is to ensure that all secondary schools have at least 30% of their pupils achieving at least 5 good GCSEs by 2011 (including English & maths). This figure is part of a wider move to have 90% of 19 year old's achieving this standard by 2020 as part of the Leitch skills agenda

- Each local authority will have to draft plans of how they will deal with schools who are within the national challenge or at risk of falling to below the 30% target. Plans to be presented to DSCF by end of July

- Yorkshire and Humber has the highest percentage of schools which fall into this category than any other region (27%). Click for a full list of schools in England. Below is a diagramme from the DCSF for Yorkshire and Humber.

- Whilst many of these schools have a high incidence of free school meals (a proxy for family poverty) and a low attainment at primary level English & Maths, many schools with similar characteristics do well and can be well above the 30% target

- The City of York is held as a beacon local authority due to the way it has approached similar issues in their schools (they also have no schools in the category)
- There is £400m given to this challenge. £20m will be spent on national challenge advisors, who will replace existing school improvement partners and can offer increased support (up to 20 days per year); £20m on National Leaders of Education and other Leadership support; £100m on teaching and learning and other support; £260 on building academy and trust schools where the school is falling substantially below the target
- Extra support for English and Maths tuition
- Sir Mike Tomlinson will chair an expert group to assist national challenge schools

BBC News website

Read DCSF News release

Complete list of number of schools per local authority

Click on image to see Schools Minister, Jim Knight, explain the policy

Ideas on special educational needs

The think tank Policy Exchange and Centre Forum have jointly released this report with suggestions of the future of Special Educational Needs (SEN) education. After discussing the issues around SEN, with data showing that the UK has a very high prevalence of SEN the author goes on to suggest policy changes.

Key points:
- SEN is very high in the UK and disproportionally effects the poorest in society.
- Parents, not politicians, are best placed to decide where their children should be educated
- More school choice and freedoms should be given to schools, similar to the Academies programme
- School league tables should be made clearer to enable parents with SEN children to make informed evaluations
- Better training of teachers so there are more SEN specialists, this should be funded by a reduction in the number of teaching assistants

The value of social care professionals in extended schools

The NFER have conducted research to evaluate the value social care professionals bring to extended schools.

Key points:
- Partnership and integrated working are key if extended schools are to deliver the 5 ECM outcomes
- There will be difficulties as differing working practices and cultures will clash initially
- Four models of social care seem to exist, which are not mutually exclusive
- Across the differing models there is agreement that placing social care professionals in schools is beneficial
- There was also agreement that the extended school is a suitable venue in which social care professionals can fulfil their service remit
- Less qualified staff are being used within the extended school setting to provide lower-level needs and referring higher-level needs to appropriate colleagues. This creates capacity in the social care system and enables effective allocation of workforce skills

Care matters - implementation plan

The Government's latest development in the Care Matters initiative (intended to improve the life chances of children in care, "looked after children") is to launch this implementation plan with the Local Government Association.

Key points:
- National framework for children in care and the link to performance management
- Guidance for Children's Trusts
- Evaluation tools to be used

BME attainment

This report by the DCSF follows a longitudinal study into the attainment of Black & Minority Ethnic students throughout their secondary education.

Key points:
- The mean score at KS3 in English, maths and science for Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Black African groups were all substantially below the mean for White British pupils by the equivalent of over a whole year of progress
- At KS4, the mean score for Black Caribbean pupils is still significantly lower than White British. However, the mean score for Pakistani pupils is only just below the White British mean, and the mean scores for Bangladeshi and Black African pupils do not differ significantly from the mean for White British pupils
- At KS3, Indian pupils were only marginally ahead of White British, but at KS4 they are substantially ahead
- The poor attainment of pupils from low socio-economic status homes whatever their ethnic group, ought to be seen as an cause for concern
- The attainment of White British pupils was particularly vulnerable to low parental social class, mothers with no educational qualifications, relative poverty, living in single parent households, living in rented housing and living in deprived neighbourhoods
- In effect, White British are the most polarised ethnic group in terms of attainment: White British pupils from high SEC homes are one of the highest attaining ethnic groups, while White British pupils living in disadvantaged circumstances are the lowest attaining group
- After controlling for the range of socio-economic variables indicated above
the groups for whom low attainment is the greatest concern are:
a) White British boys and girls, and Black Caribbean boys, from low SEC homes. These
are the three lowest attaining groups;
b) Black Caribbean pupils, particularly but not exclusively boys, from middle and high
SEC homes, who underachieve relative to their White British peers
- The factors found to have the greatest impact on attainment were pupils educational aspirations, parents educational aspirations for their child and pupils academic self-concept. These are important factors through which the effect of social class is mediated.

Demographics of Higher Education

Although an issue of adult learning, this report by Universities UK, projects the demographics of universities in 20 years time, hence the children of today. The authors are keen to stress that the report does not predict what will happen, but that this report is intended to assist with an ongoing project into the future of the sector.

Key findings:
- Full time undergraduate will see a small rise (0.8%), but part time under-graduate will see a significant rise (4.7%)
- Whereas at postgraduate level the reverse is true: part-time learners will increase by more then part-time learners (2.6% to 1.7%)
- Overall HE learners will increase by 2.1% over the 20 years

Childhood intervention

The UCD Geary Institute, Dublin have tested a model of childhood intervention, using economic theory, to assess the optimum age at which intervention should occur. The paper finds that although the mantra is that earlier intervention is best as it saves costs later, this is based on assumptions which do not always hold.

Key points:
- The paper makes the point that there has been a rise in early intervention, as shown by the increase in early years state intervention.
- There is a trade off between providing early intervention and potential false identification of need.
- Early intervention is more likely to be of benefit, but it is also more likely to be less accurate than identifying need later.
- There is a need to be fully aware of the costs and effectiveness of intervention, however the latter is difficult to pre-determine.

Conservative Policies

Michael Gove, the Conservative Party's speaker for Children, Schools and Families, spoke on the Andrew Marr Show (BBC 1, 1st June 2008) about their school policies.

Key policies the Conservative Party propose:
- More private and voluntary sector management of schools, but without the drive to make profits.
- More freedom around the national curriculum.
- More parental choice over where their children go to.
- No selection over pupil admission (at least not more than 10% of the total pupil intake, similar to the freedoms that academies currently have).
- More teaching by ability within schools.
- The comprehensive ideal of mixed social intake would stay.

Read the Conservative Policy Green Paper