Tackling Disadvantage and Underachievement in Schools

A Practical Guide for Teachers

Diane Montgomery

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000043556
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This practical resource shows what teachers can do to combat disadvantage and underachievement in schools and from early years to secondary education. Written by an experienced teacher, teacher educator and chartered psychologist, the book highlights effective teaching and learning methods that can be used to overcome barriers to learning, satisfy different learning needs and help students achieve their full potential.

Packed with up-to-date research, useful guidance and examples, the book explores what schools have done and what they can do without need for extra resourcing. It includes case studies that examine the types of underachievement patterns that are found across age ranges and, by detailing approaches in subject teaching, defines the nature of effective learning and shows what strategies can be used to meet these criteria. Moreover, the chapters provide:

• An exploration into the central needs of underachieving and disadvantaged learners across the ability range
• Information about how to audit the provision and the needs
• Accessible resources for the classroom changes that need to be made to the education and training of teachers

Tackling Disadvantage and Underachievement in Schools is essential reading for teachers in early years education and primary and secondary schools, teachers in training and their educators, as well as leaders, policymakers, researchers and anyone interested in improving performance in schools.

1
The identification of underachievement

Introduction

Underachievement is widely defined as the failure of individuals to live up to or meet their potential. Potential is usually estimated in relation to IQ, and IQ itself is usually defined as a general problem solving ability, the result of what has been learned in the environment without necessarily having been specifically taught. A rich experiential environment will provide greater opportunities for learning than a poor one. Thus, the home environment in addition to what schools offer can facilitate learning or diminish it. The ‘home’ effect, according to Ofsted (2006), is around 10 per cent and stronger than school effects. However what Ofsted can measure is somewhat limited. About half the home effect is created by parents taking their children to museums, galleries and other cultural experiences (Sutton Trust, 2010).

Figure 1.1 represents the major internal and external factors that have been identified as contributing to underachievement across the ability and age ranges. The degree and pattern of the effects of each varies according to the individual.

Figure 1.1 Internal and external barriers creating underachievement

Models used in analysis and intervention

The following models represent different approaches to analysis and intervention:

• ‘Within child’ model – the pupil is a problem pupil, and all the reasons are to be found in his or her character and makeup. It is a defective personality-type model.
• Social model – all the difficulties observed are ascribed to the influences of poor housing, social disadvantage and poverty. If these were set right, then the child’s behaviour would automatically improve.
• Ecological model – this is the newest approach in the field and argues that the interaction of personal, social and contextual factors all contribute to create or remove the ‘problem’ and difficulties or increase/reduce the challenging behaviour. This is an interactionist model.
• Pedagogical model – this is the approach that argues that teachers, teaching method, school ethos and style all interact to create the UAch and any behaviour difficulties observed. Improvements in these can change the behaviour of even the most disaffected pupils over a period of time. It can be regarded perhaps as a more focused interactive model.

Sometimes behaviour difficulties are the only sign that a pupil is underachieving, especially if the work set is completed and only at the same standard as that of peers.

High learning potential

Another way of looking at the problem of UAch is to think of an individual’s potential for learning. IQ may be one indication of this, but in the presence of a more modest IQ, some children may nevertheless have high learning potential (HLP). It may be this that enables them to succeed in life if not in school. They may display what we recognise as wisdom as young as five years old, seeming much more mature than peers.

Particular types of learning disability, such as in language, literacy, visuo-spatial and coordination difficulties may lower IQ subtest scores just as a poor socio-cultural environment can. This may not affect the learning potential in other spheres. If the learning disabilities can be overcome, the true learning potential may be revealed and achieved. These are regarded in the UK as learners with ‘additional needs’, formerly termed ‘special educational needs and disabilities’ (SEND).

An IQ is difficult to establish with accuracy in pre-school, and the tests are time-consuming to administer. Early years teachers are often reluctant to engage with such measures. But it is evident that there is a need for some early and easily accessible indicator(s) that will alert educators to high potential and also potential problems. It will enable them to organise additional support, compensation or intervention. Even later when some stability is established, IQ may not be the best predictor of later achievement with a correlation of +0.6 or a 36 per cent predictive capacity (Labon, 1973, McCoach et al., 2017).

The English Foundation Year assessments (DfE, 2014a) failed to identify ‘gifted’ children in reception, much less their potential underachievement. The baseline assessments for 4–5-year-olds in England and Wales asked teachers to assess if each child could do the following:

• Recognise and write numbers 1–10
• Write his or her own name and recognise letters by shape and sound (all?)
• Concentrate without supervision for 10 minutes (on what?)

Not surprisingly, the results failed to identify gifted pupils at the start of school, given the nature of the questions and lack of relevant criteria.

Sutton Trust Research (2010) identified ‘Early Years Gaps’ in children growing up in the UK and found that children of the poorest fifth of families were already nearly a year (11.1 months) behind those children from middle-income families in vocabulary tests by age 5, when most children start school. In later Sutton Trust research, Jerrim (2013) found that disadvantaged learners were 11 months behind peers in reading by the end of the foundation year (reception) and never managed to catch up. It means that using early reading as an indicator of potential achievement as some teachers do will miss the disadvantaged learners and learners with dyslexia with high potential.

A longitudinal study of intellectual ability and academic achievement (McCoach et al., 2017) was the Fullerton Study. It examined the relationship between intelligence and school achievement from elementary through secondary school in the US. The findings showed that the students’ achievement was highly stable across the school years. The researchers found that after seven years intelligence was not predictive of either reading or mathematics achievement when prior achievement was accounted for.

Students who enter school with strong academic skills tend to maintain their academic advantage throughout their elementary and secondary school careers.

(p. 7)

They concluded that students who enter school at a disadvantage are likely to lag behind their peers throughout elementary and secondary school. Thus, high-quality learning experiences are essential for all children, especially in the foundation year, to gain academic success and if we wish to narrow the achievement gaps among sub-groups.

Even when IQs are established later, a year 7 pupil with an IQ score of 115 but with dyslexia, spelling and/or handwriting difficulties or from a disadvantaged environment will be likely to have a learning potential 10 points higher. A threshold level of only 120 IQ points was found to be necessary for great creative achievements (Torrance, 1963; Silverman, 2002).

Threshold levels are however suspect. This is because of the built-in errors of measurement in the tests. In the best constructed, individually administered tests, this standard error (SE) is between plus and minus 3 and 4 points. It means that a measured IQ of 120 can be between 115 and 124 points. Group tests have higher SEs and at the best this is plus or minus 5 points.

The policy (DfEE, 1999) that schools should identify the top 5 per cent by ability in each school and have a reserve or shadow register also proved problematic This was because the cognitive abilities tests that are used by many schools will miss many of the more able because of the SE and because literacy skills are involved in reading and responding to the test items. Primary schools use SATs levels to identify the more able. The mean level of achievement expected in year 6 is level 4, and the more able are expected to achieve level 5 and the most able level 6 or more. These levels are vulnerable to error because literacy skills are intimately involved in English, maths and science, although maths maybe less susceptible until problems are set in words. Research on high ability (Tannenbaum, 1993) recommended that for gifted programmes the top 15 per cent by ability plus the top 15 per cent by school achievements should be selected, and even then, many of the most able would be missed. Gagne’s (1995) research showed that 40 per cent of pupils in schools would qualify as potentially gifted and talented. The fact that many still regard a figure of 1 or 2 per cent of pupils as potentially gifted shows a large gap in our expectations.

Lower attainment

After the introduction of the comprehensive system of education in the 1970s, it became impossible to lecture about giftedness and talent and in a series of in-service training courses in Surrey at their Teacher’s Centres, for example, the courses could not be called ‘gifted education,’ ‘education for the more able,’ or even ‘mixed-ability teaching.’ They had to be termed ‘study skills’ courses. Even publishers would not accept ‘gifted’ in their titles. Underachieving more able pupils were gathered up in provision for ‘lower attainers’ (Montgomery, 1998). This term includes the widest range of pupils, the slower learners, the average, and the gifted, all of whom may be underachieving or just not meeting the targets set for them.

The Nebraska Starry Night (NSN) Project (Griffin et al., 1995) was an example of authentic assessment by teachers in the early identification of more able/creative children from non-traditional backgrounds. It is a general screening device expected to identify 12 to 15 per cent of children functioning at above grade level. There is no precise score or label. After factor analyses, four profiles or types emerged:

• Type One: The knowing, verbal, independent child
• Type Two: The curious, moving, and doing explorer child
• Type Three: The quiet, focused, unexpectedly humorous child
• Type Four: The socially interactive, engaging, ‘on stage’ child

A second result from the three-year research was that teachers with a directive, behaviour-based approach (traditional non-constructivist) could identify children showing early signs of able/creative behaviour. Teachers in child-centred, constructivist classrooms had more opportunities to identify able/creative behaviours and therefore found more children with these abilities.

NSN takes skill and training to use and is an assessment that can require considerable observation time to achieve with accuracy. In our current objectives-based assessment climate in the UK, it would not be feasible to use NSN, but the profiles are worth keeping in mind. Authentic assessment is an important consideration, and it matters greatly that an open cognitive- and problem-based curriculum is on offer so that high ability as well as creativity can be identified. There are now many examples of these types of initiatives in the gifted education field, such as Maker’s DISCOVER and REAP projects (2013), Wallace’s TASC project (2009), Warwick’s (2009) REAL project initially with BAME groups and McCluskey et al.’s (2000) ‘Lost Prizes’ for disadvantaged groups. What is needed is a strategy that will reveal HLP or some aspect of it for the regular classroom teacher. It needs to be one that does not require a special training programme or materials other than normal classroom activities.

Intrinsic factors

Motivation and personality factors

In a longitudinal study of a gifted cohort of 1500 pupils with a mean IQ of 154, Terman (1925) estimated that only 1 of them would be remembered in 100 years and perhaps 6 might become national figures (Terman, 1954). Freeman (1991, 2010) found a similar lack of very high achievement in her longitudinal study of a gifted cohort of children in England.

The most successful achievers did however share some common attributes, according to Terman. They were emotionally stable; had high degrees of motivation, interest and persistence; and were self-confident enough to pursue their ideas when others did not agree with them. Lower achievement was associated with a lack of these factors and family disruption. In both the UK and the US, the ability to pay for private education and private personal tuition appears to be a significant factor in achieving high-status jobs whatever the level of ability.

Analysis by Cropley (1994) found that there was no true giftedness without creativity. Creativity however is difficult to measure as potential but is evident in productive problem solving. It is both an intrinsic and an extrinsic factor in that it includes an individual’s creative potential and abilities and the opportunities for its development and facilitation in the home, school and environment.

Learning disability

This intrinsic factor generally termed ‘learning difficulties’ in the UK would appear to be particularly problematic to identify in the literacy area before the age of 7 years. This is when failure to learn to read at the expected level becomes evident despite normal teaching methods and additional support. This is a traditional view established in the UK for Early Years education in the Bullock Report (DES, 1975) and endorsed since by dyslexia researchers and tutors. This will need to be reviewed in subsequent chapters.

Children with HLP and dyslexia are regarded as twice exceptional (2E). Up to 50 per cent of children with a special need, such as dyslexia, may also have another co-occurring learning difficulty/disability, such as handwriting problems (including developmental coordination disorder, or DCD), or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) (co-occurring at 30 per cent) making their condition dual and multiply exceptional (DME).

Dyslexia is a severe literacy problem in reading and spelling found across the ability range. In the UK, it makes up 10 per cent of the school population with 4 per cent being severe cases (BDA, 2019a). Higher numbers can be found in disadvantaged populations. Other co-occurring disabilities can be Asperger syndrome and ADHD, but their incid...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Author biography
• Introduction
• 1 The identification of underachievement
• 2 Disadvantage and underachievement
• 3 How schools can raise achievement
• 4 Case studies in diagnosis and intervention of UAch
• 5 Changing early years teaching and closing the literacy gap
• 6 Changing higher-order skills teaching, strategic approaches
• 7 Pedagogy: practical teaching strategies across the curriculum and age ranges
• Postscript
• Bibliography
• Index