or Every Child Still Matters
We are in a period of educational flux, with a number of areas which were formerly a part of the fixed scenery of schooling being altered. Schools are seeking Academy status and Free Schools are being set up. One constant in every education setting is that each building houses a collection of individuals, each with a unique start point and personal aspiration to a
successful future. The journey for each is specific and, at times, requires personalised intervention to provide support or challenge. Individualised needs range from special educational needs to gifted and talented, the mixed ability intake of every school.
Schools are judged by the difference they make to each individual during their time in the school, the value that they add to the experience. This is a statistic which cannot be escaped, but it can be an area of significant challenge for schools. Concentration on the borderline children who make a difference to the headline scores can exclude the able and less able children from making progress appropriate to their needs, thereby depressing the value-added score.
To achieve the value added baselines in Key Stages 2 and 4, schools have to be able to show two levels of progress for each child. Most schools will track each child’s progress and address personal need as it arises. Many teachers spend many hours at their laptops recording how their children are achieving. It is questionable whether measuring and tracking children, on its own, makes them progress.
If teaching is not being sufficiently personalised, there can be a gap which depresses expectation, limits engagement and outcomes. Take an example:-
Child x is currently judged to be achieving 2b on National Curriculum (NC) measures. The teacher is really good with Assessing Pupil Progress (APP) and has the grids to prove this. Is the next step one small element as dictated by the APP grids, to achieve 2a, or a potentially larger step by looking at the level 3 requirements? Should the teacher be
modelling expectation by showing the child what level 3 looks like? The technology is available, through visualisers and scanning work. The teacher has to provide the clear vision of the journey to be taken, the mapping of the progress expected and a clear vision of what that looks like, based on previous examples. Many children may be taking lots of small steps, when they could be making bigger leaps.
The quality of information available on each child, the analysis of individual needs, the detail of tasks planned and the quality of intervention during the process all have a part to play in the long term aspirations of and for each child, the parents and the school. Engaged children are happy children. Happy children make parents happy. Happy parents and
engaged children make for happy schools.
If only it were that simple!
If the items in this article are of interest to you and you’d like to respond, please use the following:-
Tel No: (01256) 316536
Fax No: 020 7190 5860
Email: info@inclusionmark.co.uk
