"I worked so hard this year - yet the student’s results were no better!"
By Richard James @jamesrsci
First and foremost, it’s important to remember that the biggest lever for improving Academic outcomes is a well-sequenced, high-quality curriculum delivered by highly effective practitioners and evidence-informed quality first teaching. However, as we embark (at the time of writing) on the return of examinations in 2021-22 it seems a prime opportunity to consider how we can reframe our use of academic interventions that don’t overly burden staff workload and shifts the accountability towards the student and not the teacher.
For context, this approach will not be for everyone, but if you have previously worked all hours of the day running multiple afterschool, before school, or even lunchtime intervention sessions and been disappointed for your students on results day, this approach may be worth a try.
Where it all started
‘What are YOU going to do about it?’ – this is the question I was once asked in Term 3 of Year 11 by a senior leader in response to an underwhelming set of mock assessment data.
Whilst in some regards this is a completely fair question – if it was meant to encompass the following:
Is our curriculum sequenced well?
Are our teachers highly effective practitioners?
Are we using our curriculum time as efficiently as we could be?
Are teacher expectations high enough of all students in lessons?
However, I suspect what the senior leader was actually asking was:
What am I going to do to ensure ‘student X’ gets an additional 15 marks on each paper by the summer term?
Now again, this is a fair question but at the time the most common suggested strategy from more experienced colleagues was that as a teacher I should offer up multiple after-school sessions to teach students.
This assumption supposes that by having more lessons with a teacher, students would do better.
Improving outcomes efficiently
The above assumption in my experience is typically not wrong. The more time students spend with a subject specialist revisiting previously taught content the better that student will do.
However, surely if we are to be more efficient, we need to rephrase the original question.
What is the student going to do about it?
If you’ve read one of the many cognitive science articles or even McCrea’s insights on how we can catalyse learning in our classrooms it becomes clear that whilst we can ‘catalyse’ learning in our classrooms, teachers cannot actually move information from a student’s working memory to their long-term memory. Ultimately, this requires the work of the student themselves. Teachers can only assess whether the information has become stored in long-term memory by using assessment at a later date.
So, what is a low effort, high impact intervention approach
Let’s just focus on underachievement which has been caused due to a knowledge gap (as opposed to a reading gap). I would condense the response to underachievement into 4 simple steps:
Identification – Which students are underperforming?
Plan – What is the simplest way a student can improve? How long will it take? What will they do each week?
Track – Who is doing it? Who isn’t? How can you reward the students who are actively participating in your plan? What will you do for those who are not participating?
Evaluate – How will you assess the impact of the intervention? Who stays in the intervention group? Who graduates from the group? Who joins the intervention group?
A model example using Seneca Learning:
You identify 15 students who performed below your expectation on an assessment
The assessment was based on cell biology, they answered 30 questions and it is clear they lack sufficient knowledge. You intend to run a 4-week intervention cycle for this cohort.
Set the student the topic on Seneca Learning. Don’t set the whole topic at once, break it down into manageable chunks each week so that you can reward students at each stage.Track the performance each week, have a conversation with students via their classroom teacher. If you have an efficient text system, communicate home one of two messages (Good – on track, Reminder – not on track).
You should have pre-determined how you will assess them at the end. For example, students to complete an assessment (preferably online and self-marking) to demonstrate increased knowledge. You phone/text home to celebrate the successes and express your concerns for others. This is now a time to self-reflect, did this strategy work for the majority? What could you do next time for those which did not engage e.g. look, cover, write, check worksheets?
If you are considering how you can increase the engagement of the most challenging students, I often refer to the book ‘Switch’ and the idea of the elephant, rider, and path. Direct the rider by ensuring your plan is simple and obvious to follow each week (specific behaviours). Motivate the elephant by breaking it down into chunks that are not too big or too much to ask. Reward the student to ensure they feel a sense of success. Shape the path by incrementally increasing the effort only once the student has felt success with this new approach.
Keep It Simple – ‘Don’t rush towards failure’
Everything above is simple.
However, when a teacher is placed in a highly accountable environment and when the stress of responding to an underperforming cohort mounts up, it’s very easy to overanalyse data and become paralysed by it. For me, one of the most important traits of an effective leader is that when things aren’t going as you’d hope, you don’t rush towards failure. You take a step back and assess the situation. You make a plan and execute it consistently.
For lots of teachers, we are more than happy to increase the time we spend working with students, though it’s important to remember that students need to also feel accountable. Accountability to me is more than just turning up to additional sessions. Hopefully, this approach offers something different for those who are struggling to respond to underachievement.
Richard is an Assistant Vice Principal and Science teacher at a large 11-16 secondary in the South West. He has successfully led two Science faculties in multiple roles and since becoming a senior leader, has held responsibilities for Teaching and Learning and more recently Outcomes and Assessment. Passionate about sustainable school improvement and ensuring that all staff has the opportunity and capacity to thrive in their roles. Follow him @jamesrsci