February 2018 – Relay Issue 18

BookTrust is the UK's largest children's Grouping Nottingham Edu-blog reading charity. Reaching 3.4 million Students: Festival of Spotlight: Science and children across the UK each year with What is the Ben Newmark on Curiosity: books, resources and support to help INSIDE evidence for ditching starters develop a love of reading and transform setting pupils? Science fun across the city lives. www.booktrust.org.uk Booktrust have programmes supporting families and practitioners to help children experience the joy of reading and its associated benefits. Research shows that children who are introduced to books at an early age benefit educationally, culturally, socially and emotionally. Established in Westbury Academy Learning and Development Bulletin 1992, ‘Bookstart’ is the world’s first national bookgifting programme and it promotes and encourages families to share books, stories and rhymes as early as possible. For primary pupils, BookTrust have several programmes including 'Time to Read', 'Story Hunters' and 'Letterbox Club' - in which local authorities enrol children aged 3-13 in foster families by providing them with a parcel of books, maths activities and educational materials every month for six months. Secondary pupils can take advantage of programmes such as 'Bookbuzz' to encourage reading for pleasure; 'Beyond Booked Up' to develop speaking, listening, writing and reading skills; and the School Library Pack which provides over 40 free books to boost school library resources and Relay encourage pupils to try different types of books. See BG for the latest books. Issue 18, February 2018 Now in its 4th year, the Nottingham Curious Communities – From Monday 19th This 2012 American Educator article by Barak Rosenshine is Festival of Science and Curiosity will be to Wednesday 21st Feb, libraries and 10 Principles of Instruction frequently cited as one of the key suggested texts for engaging with bringing science, technology, engineering community centres in Sneinton, Bilborough education research. It sets out 10 principles of education and 1. Begin a lesson with a short and maths to the heart of Nottingham and Bulwell will host activities. suggests ways in which they can be implemented in the classroom. from 14th to 21st February. review of previous learning Curious Conversations – For education The article draws on evidence from research on cognitive science, 2. Present new material in small The festival is a wide collaboration of professionals they are hosting two research on master teachers and research on cognitive supports, which steps with student practice after organisations from across the city including fascinating conversations opportunities at the supplement and complement each other, and show that the most each step Nottingham Trent University, University of Council House. effective teachers provided new information in manageable amounts, Nottingham, The National Videogame guiding practice and relating it to previous knowledge. They provide 3. Ask a large number of questions Curious Schools – As they have done in and check the responses of all Arcade, STEM Outreach Nottingham and sufficient time for practise and review of knowledge and whilst many of previous years, they are taking fun and students Nottingham City Council. Events are spread exciting science busking and workshops to a these teachers go on to use hands-on activities, 'they always did the experiential 4. Provide models across the city under five themes: few lucky schools to meet some of activities after, not before, the basic material 5. Guide student practice Curious City – Centring on Saturday Nottingham’s future scientists and engineers. was learned.' 17th Feb, the festival will be taking over There are events to cater for all ages and 6. Check for student understanding the city centre with 'a tonne of family The research supporting each of the 10 interests , further details of which can be found principles is detailed alongside implications 7. Obtain a high success rate fun'. online at: for each principle in the classroom. Whilst 8. Provide scaffolds for difficult Curious Lates – This year there are a the three sources of evidence are different tasks series of evening shows with http://www.nottsfosac.co.uk/ fields, the evidence and ideas overlap to 9. Require and monitor independent demonstrations, talks and even inform principles of instruction that practice sciencey-themed comedy. Rosenshine states ’gives us faith that we are developing a valid and research-based 10. Engage students in weekly and understanding of the art of teaching.’ https://goo.gl/3zcH2G (pdf) monthly review Edited by Beth Greville-Giddings Despite attainment grouping between schools being less common in the English education system than other Edu-Blog Spotlight You’ve been asked for some Attainment countries, within-school setting and streaming of pupils is Ben Newmark is a history teacher. He has been a VSO information or a pupil report for a a familiar way of structuring the learning environment. volunteer, deputy headmaster, head of humanities and a meeting, but what do all those Research has shown an over-representation of students teacher trainer. He has been involved in education, in one letters mean? from disadvantaged backgrounds in lower 'ability' sets and Grouping way or another, for fifteen years. He blogs at streams and this is the focus of research from the UCL bennewmark.wordpress.com and tweets as @bennewmark https://goo.gl/mbUwAF Institute of Education Grouping Study. In his post 'Nothing new, it’s a review – on why I killed my Setting is a common feature in our schools and there is an association with setting as a signifier of high starters' Ben Newmark has written about how he's ditched Decoding the standards. Despite strong support for ’mixed-ability’ groups schools are reluctant to make changes - lesson starters for short tests at the beginning of lessons. particularly ones that may be resisted by parents. Previous research shows that there is no significant impact on pupil outcomes as a result of attainment grouping and that there are significant outcomes for lower Diary Sheet attaining pupils in mixed groupings. These pupils also make less progress than their counterparts in higher attainment groups when setting is used and have lower self-confidence. Explanations for this may include the process by which pupils are allocated to groups. Socio-economic status is a stronger predictor of placement than prior attainment as this is often done based on perceived ability. Pupils are placed in the same set across all subjects and pupils rarely move between sets following testing. TALIS There is also evidence that teacher expectations are lower for lower sets which can lead to elements of poor practice such as an impoverished curriculum and less likelihood of being taught by a subject expert. 'Best Practice in Grouping Students' is a research project funded by the EEF and conducted by researchers The OECD Teaching and Learning at UCL and Queen’s University Belfast. The project, through the implementation of two core interventions - International Survey (TALIS) is 'Best Practice in Setting', and a pilot study, 'Best Practice in Mixed Attainment, is investigating which methods He recalls training to be a teacher where the ideal lesson conducted every 5 years and asks of grouping secondary school students are most effective in improving their educational engagement and followed a 'starter, main and plenary' format and the teachers and school leaders about attainment, and has specifically been designed to improve the educational attainment of students from fetishisation of starters - the more 'whizbangy, engaging and working conditions and learning disadvantaged backgrounds by ensuring their progress is not detrimentally affected by poor practice. differentiated' the better, meant schools focussing on starters environments at their schools to help for observations and whole INSETs. The are many elements of SEMH settings that run parallel to those of ‘bottom sets’ including disproportionate countries face diverse challenges. representation of low SES, gender imbalance, segregation for behaviour regardless of 'ability', and low Looking back he recognises that he was as creative and societal expectations. It will be interesting to see whether the suggestions that come out of 'Best Practice in enthusiastic as the next person with his starters; gradually The questions are developed by Grouping Students' are ones that appear relevant to tackling some of the issues surrounding work with SEMH becoming more rigorous and historically authentic as he international experts and include pupils and schools. became more experienced, but the result was the same: pupils questions about how schools’ work is were unable to complete the work to a high standard because Dos and Don'ts of Setting organised, and about teachers’ and he was using starters to introduce new material that they didn't leaders’ experiences and opinions of Don't set by timetable convenience know yet. their schools. Do make setting as subject specific as possible Don't extrapolate setting across subjects He initially tried replacing his starters with 'reviews' with his KS4 Do group students by attainment only students. Fifteen short questions, read out, completed in silence Data is collected anonymously and Don't assign subject experts to top sets confidentially and analysis of the Do retest regularly and move between groups and self-marked. Five on the previous lesson. Five on the topic. Don't set by anything other than attainment Five on anything they might have learned about since they had data allows countries to identify Do make sure all students have access to a rich Don't give less homework to low sets started history at secondary school. These were much easier to others facing similar challenges and curriculum plan and homework became a case of pupils learning learn about their policies. Don't provide low sets with a dumbed' down Do ensure all sets are equally likely to be taught information from their exercise books and knowledge curriculum by a subject expert organisers.

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