London Schools Excellence Fund: Self-Evaluation Toolkit – FINAL Revised March 2015 London Schools Excellence Fund Self-Evaluation Final report Contact Details [email protected] 1 London Schools Excellence Fund: Self-Evaluation Toolkit – Final Report Evaluation Final Report Introduction The London Schools Excellence Fund (LSEF) is based on the hypothesis that investing in teaching, subject knowledge and subject-specific teaching methods and pedagogy will lead to improved outcomes for pupils in terms of attainment, subject participation and aspiration. The GLA is supporting London schools to continue to be the best in the country, with the best teachers and securing the best results for young Londoners. The evaluation will gather information on the impact of the Fund on teachers, students and the wider system. This report is designed for you to demonstrate the impact of your project on teachers, pupils and the wider school system and reflect on lessons learnt. It allows you to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of your project methodology and could be used to secure future funding to sustain the project from other sources. All final reports will feed into the programme wide meta-evaluation of the LSEF being undertaken by SQW. Please read in conjunction with Project Oracle’s ‘Guidance to completing the Evaluation Final Report’. Project Oracle: Level 2 Report Submission Deadline: 30 September 2015 (delete as appropriate) Report Submission: Final Report to the GLA Project Name: 6UP: Developing Excellence in Reading Lead Delivery Organisation: Richmond Park Academy London Schools Excellence Fund Reference: LSEFR1216 Authors of the Self-Evaluation: Nikki Gamble, Ginny Germaney Total LSEF grant funding for project: £351,000 Total Lifetime cost of the project (inc. match funding): £351,000 Actual Project Start Date: April 2014 Actual Project End Date: December 2015 (February 2015 agreed for final report and final budget) 2 London Schools Excellence Fund: Self-Evaluation Toolkit – Final Report 1. Executive Summary Caveat: this report has been prepared for submission on the 15th January 2016. It has however been agreed with the GLA that final delivery, completion of the final budget and the final report are extended to the end of February, due to the later start of this project and in line with the time frame in the stage 2 application, interim report and written feedback from the GLA monitoring meeting in August. This report presents an analysis of the 6UP: developing excellence in reading project, conducted in 9 schools (8 primary and 1 secondary) in the London Borough of Richmond from April 2014 – September 2015. Following a baseline audit and literature review, a 5 part pedagogic framework (called 4XR hereafter) was developed and introduced to teacher researchers along with a repertoire of teaching strategies derived from evidence based teaching practices, which teacher researchers put into practice, reviewed and refined using a lesson study approach. The project was evaluated using a range of validated quantitative and qualitative tools including a standardised reading test (New Group Reading Test), perception scales, semi- structured interviews, observation schedules and audits. The analysis of NGRT is presented in the appendices (appendix 12). Examples of the qualitative tools are included in the appendices. Results of the standardised test, which measured comprehension, fluency and vocabulary showed a mean improvement of +3.80 across all primary project schools in the period October 2015 – June 2015, which for the sample size is deemed a significant by the test producers. The comparison group showed a negative change of -1.16 over the same period. However, the return of the results was not high and cannot therefore provide a reliable comparison. The results in the secondary school remained level and this provokes reflection and the need for further analysis. Following a gap analysis, a series of training sessions was designed to develop teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the higher order reading process, the component skills of reading comprehension, effective pedagogies and text knowledge. The evaluation shows improvement in teachers’ perceptions of their subject knowledge and confidence to teach higher attaining students, as well as increased participation in wider professional dialogue at regional and international conferences. Observation of teaching post-delivery showed more instances of challenging dialogue used to scaffold understanding at the higher levels of thinking. Teachers spoke less and listened more, and interventions were more considered. A wider range of text was used for teaching, especially shorter more challenging texts. There was greater consideration given to the profile of texts used across a sequence of work and across the academic year. Pupils report high levels of engagement and increased motivation in lessons as well as evidence of wider and more challenging reading choices. The report explains that time for implementing the wider outcomes has been curtailed due to the original time frame stating a finish date of April 2016 and this has inevitably had an impact on the completion of the products arising from the work conducted in school. Nevertheless the structures are in place and the deliverables are to be published by the end of February 2016 with a website to support ongoing development and facilitate further refinement. The following recommendations are made: 3 London Schools Excellence Fund: Self-Evaluation Toolkit – Final Report That the framework is tested with a more rigorous control to validate the significance of the standardised data. That the framework is further refined and that a 4XR project is established. That the published toolkit is used as a basis for training and development including formal professional development (courses and conferences) and informal professional development through the use of the website. That the framework is used and tested with students from a wider demographic, reflecting the cultural and ethnic diversity of London. That the 4XR framework and the associated tools are used and evaluated with specific groups of students in particular students for whom English is not a first language students who are proficient decoders but struggle with reading comprehension. The literature review indicates that some of the strategies adopted and developed for the 4XR framework for use with high attaining readers will also benefit additional language learners but with only 3% of EAL students across the Borough of Richmond, it was not possible to provide any evidence to support that within the current project. Feedback from teachers indicated that students other than the target group were benefitting and there is a suggestion, born out by the NGRT test results. Some aspects of the framework require further development. The integration of metacognitive approaches which enable both students and teachers to reflect on the processes of learning could be exemplified with more depth. Dissemination of the project using the published materials leads to further opportunities to build on achievements to date. Further examples are gathered and used to develop and refine the framework to show progression from years 3 through to 8. A flightpath from primary to secondary school focussing on the language of instruction is developed in order to build on the emergent ideas from the current project. A core set of tools and common language could be developed with an articulation of different levels of sophistication. There is further analysis of the processes that enable teachers to move their professional practice forward in ways that are sustainable and impact on students’ learning. 2. Project Description The project was designed to increase attainment in English, especially in reading, initially in the project schools and then to be disseminated more widely. The focus group for the project was high attaining readers in years 6 – 8. Historically, the project schools have a good track record of pupils achieving level 6 in maths and writing but that success has not been extended to reading. This suggested that there was potential for significant improvement. The mid-term impact was initially expressed as a goal to have more students in year 6 achieving level 6 and students in year 8 achieving level 6 and grade B in year 11. However, since the setup of the project, the assessment framework for schools has changed and levels are no longer used to measure progress. However, this does not invalidate the aim of the project to provide the most effective teaching to enable the highest achieving readers to reach their full potential. The 6UP project has used a standardised test for reading comprehension and has not been reliant exclusively on SATs measures and consequently the results remain relevant. 4 London Schools Excellence Fund: Self-Evaluation Toolkit – Final Report Within this frame of reference the project sought to meet the following objectives. To: cultivate teacher excellence enable cross school learning and a shared understanding of what constitutes outstanding practice strengthen existing, and successful, school partnership work create new teaching resources to support ongoing professional learning further develop existing activities already tested and positively evaluated Strong, established links existed already across the project schools with heads meeting twice per term to plan joint projects. A team of teacher researchers was selected from all of