Raising the Achievement of All Pupils Within an Inclusive Setting

Practical Strategies for Developing Best Practice

Belle Wallace, Sue Leyden, Diane Montgomery, Carrie Winstanley, Michael Pomerantz, Sally Fitton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415549493
• eBook ISBN: 9781135264895
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Schools everywhere are concerned with raising standards according to government requirements, particularly for those pupils who could be termed 'more able'. The key challenges revolve around government initiatives such as Every Child Matters, independent learning, inclusion and differentiation, thus making learning effective and successful for all pupils.

The authors of this highly engaging book carried out extensive analysis of 12 key schools, selected for their representation of common challenging educational circumstances including working with children from:

• Multi-lingual and multi-ethnic communities
• Low socio-economic and disadvantaged communities
• Small rural schools and big inner city communities
• Schools with high levels of special educational needs

All the case-study schools subscribe to the educational ethos of creating an environment for all pupils to discover their gifts and talents, and the authors show clearly how these findings can be applied in any school.

Raising the Achievement of All Pupils Within an Inclusive Setting describes the strategies that have been developed to provide equal opportunities for all pupils, whilst accommodating different individual needs and rates of development. A major focus is on identifying and resolving underachievement in schools.

Drawing upon intensive interviews with staff, pupils, parents and governors, the authors provide practical guidance for successfully raising motivation, achievement and educational standards in any school environment.

Teachers, Gifted and Talented Co-ordinators and school leaders seeking guidance and inspiration from real-life schools will benefit from the down-to-earth, achievable advice offered in this book.

Chapter 1
Tackling underachievement
Maximising opportunities for all pupils in an inclusive setting

Belle Wallace

We are sentient, dynamic beings capable of change: but we can be trapped not only in the learned sense of what we are not, but also in a powerful negative mirror image of ourselves that we perceive emanating from others. Yet, we can be released through enabling interactions with those special mentors who offer constant and strong scaffolding that we are, indeed, of great worth and significance as individuals with potential.
(Belle Wallace, 2008a)

Introduction

During the years 2006–2007, the writers who have contributed to this book carried out case-study researches in twelve schools: five secondary and seven primary schools in the UK. The overall purpose of the case studies was to highlight the practical strategies that successfully enabled the transformation of pupils’ high potential into high achievement. The initial research was jointly funded by London Gifted and Talented (London G + T) and the National Association for Able Children in Education (NACE). A summary of this research is published by NACE (Wallace et al. 2007) (in conjunction with London G + T) entitled Raising the Achievement of Able, Gifted and Talented Pupils within an Inclusive School Framework. (Copies of the summary can be obtained from [email protected].)

The aim of this book is to explore teaching and learning strategies that will maximise opportunities for all learners’ gifts and talents to be discovered and nurtured; hence, we have some reservations in referring to some pupils as ‘gifted’, especially with regard to very young learners. Therefore, throughout the text, we use a variety of terms such as ‘able’, ‘more able’, potentially able’, as well as ‘gifted’ and ‘potentially gifted’. It is only life experiences and appropriate opportunities, together with the determination and stamina of each individual, that will bring potential gifts and talents to fruition. In addition, throughout this text, the schools that are referred to are the twelve case-study schools that took part in the original case-study research; however, the authors make generalisations about best practice that apply to all schools.

This chapter summarises a range of attitudes and strategies that underpin successful schools: undoubtedly, high-level leadership and appropriate curriculum provision are significant drivers in tackling the underachievement of our able pupils. The vision of the schools in the original case study is not one that clings to a narrow elitist view of recognising a small percentage of pupils as gifted and talented, but one that is concerned to raise the achievement of all pupils within an inclusive context. In her chapter, Sally Leyden describes how the leaders in these case-study schools have created a safe environment within an ethos and climate of high aspirations, expectations and respect.

The schools that participated in the original case-study research all believed and practised a policy of inclusion – providing rich and varied opportunities for all pupils to discover their gifts and talents through opportunities to engage in enriched and extended provision. All the schools in the research were concerned to provide curricular opportunities that would challenge the potentially very able while also supporting and extending learners at all stages of development. The schools that participated in the original research were all urban schools with a wide range of catchment areas and, consequently, a very wide and demanding range of challenges that needed to be surmounted.

All the schools in the study were concerned to develop whole-school awareness of possible causes of underachievement, and also to take appropriate action to prevent the syndrome of underachievement occurring. The researchers spent considerable time in each school accessing relevant qualitative and quantitative data: school records and logbooks, Standard Attainment Test (SAT) results, Ofsted reports, examination results, National Quality Standards achievements, NACE Challenge Award achievements and evidence of other various performance and achievement awards. Researchers also observed lessons and interviewed members of the senior management, members of staff including Gifted and Talented (G + T) coordinators, a selection of pupils, parents/carers and governors. This qualitative information was richly informative, reflecting the dynamic, living research evidence that should lie at the centre of detailed case-study research.

Although the purpose of the original research was to analyse the components that constitute excellent provision for G + T pupils, it was soon obvious that since all schools had developed a policy of inclusion, what was considered best practice for G + T pupils applied to all pupils. Hence this text, although slanted towards the needs of pupils with high potential, is also focused on the needs of all learners.

See Appendix 1 on page 191 for a brief summary of the case-study school contexts.

As the lead researcher of the original case studies, I was privileged to work with a renowned team of education experts who all have long and distinguished careers forged through living experience of dealing with educational issues at the practical grass roots of classrooms. They are well known nationally (and also internationally) for their personal commitment to the well-being and development of learners, teachers and parents; they are equally well known for their passion for advocating the provision of engaging and inspiring educational opportunities for all learners in an inclusive setting. Consequently, they have all spent their professional lives being concerned to analyse the intrinsic meaning of ‘achievement’, together with the causes of ‘underachievement’, and to bring about effective educational practice to circumvent the widespread syndrome of ‘underachievement’ that has, unfortunately, become a major challenge in many of our schools throughout the UK.

After the completion of the original action research study (2007), all the writers felt that, as a team, we needed to extend the summary report by adding our own reflective thoughts based on our collective lifetime of promoting what we would call ‘an enabling, enriching, extending curriculum’. The text is not intended to be a criticism of schools: its purpose is to provide a base for reflective practitioners to debate and celebrate those educational practices which are successfully motivating learners and to consider how they can extend their best practice. We hope that the text will become a standard reference book and a sounding board for initial and continuing professional development (CPD), and that teams of teachers will engage in discussion and debate with their pupils and pupils’ parents/carers using the text as a stimulus for further thinking and problem-solving around school-based issues. Throughout the text, readers are invited to reflect upon and to discuss the many issues that challenge all teachers in today’s classrooms.

What do we mean by ‘achievement’ and ‘underachievement’?

The following section discusses the meaning of ‘achievement’ and ‘underachievement’, as the terms are used throughout this text, and can be used as the basis for staff discussion so that working definitions can be adopted with common understanding across the school. The section also suggests a classification framework for ‘Typologies of Underachievement’: this can be used to heighten teacher awareness and, possibly, to extend existing conceptions.

In a text that aims to discuss effective strategies to promote achievement, it is essential that we also discuss what we mean by underachievement. Both terms are relative to the individual and also to the aims of the particular education system and its values: both terms need to be viewed from the basis of ‘What do teachers, learners and parents/carers regard as “achievement”
and its negative image “underachievement”?’

It is important to emphasise at the beginning that although there are a number of inter-related general factors which bring about the overall syndrome of underachievement, essentially each individual has a unique set of characteristics. Hence, although we can discuss underachievement in general terms, the assessment of the causes of underachievement and the possible intervention (remediation) strategies need to focus on the individual learner and his or her special characteristics and needs. Also, we must recognise that there are some causes of underachievement that are beyond the power and capacity of a single school to remove: personal, home and community factors can be completely debilitating. Nevertheless, schools and teachers can and do make a difference. When schools promote personalised learning and involve learners in the negotiation of what is learned and how it is learned, then learners have ownership and a sense of being a partner in the learning process.

Throughout the text, we will use the term word achievement to mean the outcome of effort, learning, perseverance, self-belief and encouragement. It involves the individual experiencing challenge, making discoveries and reaping the rewards, either intrinsic or extrinsic, of effort and application. An ethos of achievement can be defined as one in which there are high expectations and high standards set in all spheres of activity, where effort is supported and where all learners are encouraged to ‘aim high’, to learn from mistakes and to go on to experience and enjoy success. Consequently we use the term underachievement to signify lack of the above.

In contrast, we will use the term attainment to refer to pupils’ attaining in terms of measured levels obtained in SATs in literacy and numeracy and the General Certificate of Education (GCSE) levels A to C.

As stated above, the major theme running through the text is how we can promote a school policy of inclusion where all learners’ needs are met. However, within this overall ethos of inclusion, we will, nevertheless, discuss strategies that can be developed to cater for the particular needs of potentially able learners.

While classifying the behaviour patterns of underachieving but potentially able pupils, it is essential to note the positive characteristics of able underachievers when they are motivated. We could term these characteristics ‘switch on lights’.

Box 1.1 Able underachievers: switch on lights!

When motivated, able underachievers:

• are inventive and original – often thinking ‘outside the box’;
• are quick to learn new concepts and to pose problems, and quick to suggest ingenious solutions – especially those unrelated to academic school tasks;
• ask provocative questions with regard to life issues and people;
• persevere, particularly when the relationship with the teacher is positive and personally supportive;
• are surprisingly wise about everyday problems and common-sense issues;
• are streetwise and aware of how the ‘real’ world works;
• are perceptive in discussions about people’s motives, needs and frailties, especially about their teachers;
• are responsive in a secure environment;
• enjoy the overview and bigger picture of a task or activity.

How do we assess underachievement with regard to potentially able learners? In any discussion concerning the assessment of the underachievement of potentially able learners, we need to consider a number of dimensions. Box 1.2 gives a range of possible strategies that schools may use.

Box 1.2 Strategies for assessing possible underachievement

• Significant discrepancy between verbal and non-verbal scores on an individual or group test of intelligence – high non-verbal score as against low verbal score.
• Professional teacher assessment of pupils’ strengths across the full range of multiple capacities (intelligences). This can be the result of teacher observation or linked with an inventory of characteristics typifying behaviours across the full range of multiple capacities (intelligences).
• An indication of underachievement as measured against school norms such as SATs, class tests, examinations.
• Teachers’ judgement of personal underachievement perceived with regard to pupils’ self-confidence, self-e...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Tackling Underachievement: Maximising Opportunities for All Pupils In an Inclusive Setting
• Chapter 2: Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted and Talented Underachievers
• Chapter 3: Gifted and Talented Children With Special Educational Needs: Lifting Underachievement In Dual and Multiple Exceptionalities
• Chapter 4: Providing Challenging Opportunities In the Classroom
• Chapter 5: Defining a Research Community
• Chapter 6: Organisational Strategies Leadership and Curriculum Provision
• Conclusion and Personal Reflection
• Appendix 1: Contextual Data of the Participating Case-Study Schools
• Appendix 2: Able, Gifted and Talented Child Referral Sheet (Portswood)
• Appendix 3: Flexible Long-Term Planning for Able Learner Profiled In Appendix 2