How does Canons crack the code and contribute to improving social mobility?

 Bletchley Park. During WWII the German secret codes were broken here.  

This post will focus on a Teacher Learner Community (TLC) session that ran as part of the discussion forum TLC which focuses on closing the achievement gap. Our TLC has students at the heart and focusses on ensuring that all our students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds receive a challenging and engaging education which sets them on the right path for success in the future. This particular session focussed on social mobility. It was based on a government report that highlights the worrying impact of gaps in cognitive development between better off and disadvantaged children that open up early and over the years widen rather than narrow. This inevitably has a negative impact on future life chances. Indeed, the report highlights: 

‘nearly six out of ten disadvantaged children in England do not achieve a basic set of qualifications compared to only one in three children from more advantaged backgrounds. The story is broadly similar in Scotland and Wales. The consequence for these children is a lifelong struggle to gain basic skills, avoid unemployment and to find and hold down a good job.’

On a more positive note however, the report also reveals there are schools that have cracked the social mobility code ‘some schools seem to have learnt the secret of how to alleviate the impact of background on life chances. They have found a way of overcoming the barriers that impede social mobility. At a time when social mobility is stalling and child poverty is rising, there is an urgent need to share the lessons so that every school can crack that code.’   The report shares some interesting findings from their investigation about what such code crackers do to make an impact on raising achievement for disadvantaged pupils for example a common feature of such schools is  'properly resourcing teacher recruitment and development, partnering with other schools and ensuring disadvantaged students have (at least) their fair share of the best teachers’ time – not just subcontracting the teaching of low attainers to teaching assistants or focusing the best teachers on students at the C/D borderline' this is clearly an example of good practice.

The report concludes that their investigations into code breaking schools 'suggests that those performing well for disadvantaged students do not apply a single magic formula. Success is incremental and based on a series of small changes rather than a single ‘big bang’ – compared by one headteacher to ‘being like the success of British cycling team: the aggregation of marginal gains’. 

With this idea in mind, the TLC session therefore focussed on discussing and sharing such 'marginal gains', the 'small changes' and key strategies Canons uses to ‘crack that code’. At the same time, as staff at Canons are very reflective and are always looking for ways to build upon areas of strengths so, as well as sharing  what we currently do well academically and pastorally to close the gap, we also collectively discussed ways we could further increase the impact. As the government report makes clear, ‘there is an urgent need to share the lessons so that every school can crack that code’   this post therefore aims to share the good practice at Canons.

A link to the report can be found here. The key findings have been summarised below and were discussed in the TLC:

Social mobility – what is it?

· ‘children doing well as adults… having a job that raises their income relative to their parents... children having a fair roll of the dice, that is, for a given level of talent and effort, being as likely as children from more advantaged backgrounds to get a good job that raises their income’

· From an education system that is ‘seeking to produce autonomous, free, well rounded citizens and adults not just individuals who can make a good living.’     

  Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission Cracking the Code: how schools can improve social mobility 2014

  

What causes social immobility?

Figure 1. Potential causes of social immobility

Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission Cracking the Code: how schools can improve social mobility 2014

What do good schools do and what makes a code breaker?

Summary of key findings:

1.    There is a lot of scope to improve performance.

2.    New accountability measures will improve social mobility (reduce tendency to focus on C/D borderline groups)

3.    Teacher expectations of disadvantaged students are key

4.    Some schools are ‘code breakers’ they:

a.    Use Pupil Premium strategically to improve social mobility

b.    Build a high expectations, inclusive culture

c.    Incessantly focus on the quality of teaching

d.    Have tailored strategies to engage parents

e.    Prepare students for all aspects of life not just exams

Canons the code breaker

Figure 2. Analysis of 'extreme' performing schools for disadvantaged children

Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission Cracking the Code: how schools can improve social mobility 2014 

According to the criteria outlined by the report, Canons can be seen as an example of one of these ‘code breakers’, there is ample evidence of this in the most recent Ofsted report:

·       ‘Refugees and asylum seekers and those students who join the school outside normal times also make outstanding progress.

·        There are smaller gaps in attainment between students eligible for the pupil premium and other students than are seen nationally – between one third and two thirds of a GCSE grade lower in English and mathematics. In 2012, a very high percentage of eligible students made the expected progress in GCSE English, higher than other students and the opposite of the national picture. In mathematics their progress was very close to that made by the others.

·       Younger and older students also benefit from the pupil premium, which is used to finance their participation in trips and to provide extra staff to teach them in small groups. The school’s Year 6 summer camp will be strengthened by funding for Year 7 catch-up premium.

Canons High School Ofsted Report 2013

These are some of the responses from the group discussion during the TLC:

What are we currently doing well?

·       Trips

·       Quality of T&L (Teaching and Learnig)

·       Atmosphere of challenge

·       Committed teachers

·       Recruitment and retention

·       Y7 SOLO level descriptors to provide a clear explanation of what kind of progress students are making and how they are doing that and how they can improve

·       Feedback

·       High expectations

·       Communication between key stakeholders

·       Pastoral care

·       Communicating with and engaging parents

·       Pupil premium used effectively to give pupils a range of experiences

·       Extra curricular programme

·       Enrichment courses when they are done well

·       IAG  (Information, Advice and Guidance) and careers information (Breda)

·       Sets in subjects

·       Separating genders in PE

·       Behaviour management

·       Consistency in classes

·       Code of conduct

What we can do even better to increase impact?

·       Apprenticeships

·       University links

·       Career advice given to KS3

·       Data sec- to identify minority groups and so that teachers know their disadvantaged students and PP students

·       Consistent approach in CORE and OPTIONS regarding lower ability teaching – to demonstrate Canons leadership qualities

·       Target setting with kids and learning conversations with tutors, more time for learning conversations with tutors

·       More trips for options and entitlement

·       More training for tutors about what is expected – could we have a pastoral inset? What is expected and sharing good practice?

·       A MEG and SEG should not define a student

·       Review of progress –day/half day

·       Mixing sets up a bit to address the issue of motivation and self-fulfilling prophecy

·       More registration time with tutor groups

·       Effective deployment of  TAs/ LSAs (Teaching Assistants / Learning Support Assisstants) and time for teaching staff and learning support staff to communicate with one another

·       6^th formers to be more visible (and Y11 prefects)

·       Less focus on MEG (Minimum Estimate Grades)

·       Tutors to look at monitoring long and short term goals – make pathways clearer

·       Relationships with parents

·       More apprenticeship schemes

·       More responsibility given to students

·       Parent tutor meetings during the day

Figures 3-6 Photographs of key points from the discussion during the TLC session 

Our discussions about closing the achievement gap have meant that the importance of the pastoral system and the relationships between tutors and their tutees has continually come up as an area of real significance in terms of closing the gap in student achievement. This is particularly important in light of the changing role of Heads of Year and tutors to also encompass the academic wellbeing of students. Fittingly, our next TLC we will be focussing on the role of the tutor led by our lovely NQT Minal Tailor.

Rebecca and Tom M

Using a 'Taxonomy of Errors' to Enhance Student Responses

I am writing this post to outline and to describe a technique I learnt some years ago from a long-forgotten colleague that has had a very positive impact on my teaching and the learning of my students:  the Taxonomy of Errors.  As well as describing the technique I want to show how I have developed it in recent weeks, how I have used it proactively with my students and what impact it has had on their written work.  Hopefully it may be useful to one or two of you.

In essence, the Taxonomy of Errors is a response to that perennial problem faced by teachers of dealing with a class that are all making the same mistakes.  It is a method for trying to ensure that students learn from each others' mistakes as well as from their own.  It is a method for trying to ensure that when they next attempt the same task, they will improve markedly rather than incrementally because they have addressed a range of foibles in their work.

In practice, the Taxonomy of Errors is little more than a summary of all the feedback that you have given to the students as individuals with a focus on the comments you have written time after time after time.  Sometimes I have even been known to rank them in order of frequency!!!

This is an example of a Taxonomy of Errors (ToE) for my top set English class.  I took them over two weeks ago and immediately got them to complete a full practice exam for me so I could see what they could do in the heat of battle.  This is the ToE for the important question on the Writing Section, which requires them to analyse language across two non-fiction texts and make comparisons.  As you can probably guess this response was not perhaps their finest hour, mainly because they had forgotten exam techniques in ensuring that they performed well in their controlled assessments.  This strategy is part of my portfolio of tools for getting them prepared for their exams later this month.  You will notice that the vocabulary is negative.  Although I sometimes write ToEs positively (there is an example later) the intention is to be bluntly honest about what went wrong, and the fact that the list is based on the whole class makes it easier to be so (although I am bluntly honest individually too!).

Here is another example of a Taxonomy of Errors, this time in response to a collection of timed essays from my AS Sociology students.  In this ToE I made an attempt to separate out the basic errors (at the top) and the more complex error (at the bottom) to ensure that they understood the things that they really ought not have done, regardless of their ability, and the genuine areas for further learning.  I always find that at this time of the academic year students facing imminent external examination make all kinds of foolish errors and they need to be scuttled in order to allow them to get at the more important stuff that will genuinely allow them to achieve higher grades (we always call them the Sheep Grades because they are B, A, A* - Geddit?). I always present this feedback at the very start of the lesson after I have marked the work and am increasingly linking the feedback directly to the activities of the next lesson so that they improve upon their work immediately.

Here's my latest feedback to my Y11 English students, and in it I have focused even more on the creation of a genuine Taxonomy of Errors (that may have been how it was intended and I have just found my way to it the long way around!!): from the basics that are genuinely beneath this groups of students, to the intermediate and advanced.  This feedback was from an essay on An Inspector Calls where the students were (to a greater or lesser extent) all guilty of simply trying to rewrite their controlled assessment work on Arthur and Sheila rather than respond about the Inspector as they had been asked.  I was therefore able to show them how the error at the intermediate level was preventing them from accessing the higher grades, and thereby making the feedback on higher level errors virtually redundant (most students achieved only between 17 and 21 marks out of 30 because of their intermediate errors).

Here is a very typical response from one of the students that led to this Taxonomy of Errors, and was even one of the better ones because he made sure to refer to the Inspector on four occasions.  In the end, though, his best observations were reserved for the character of Sheila and he would be reliant upon the leniency of the examiner at best and, at worst, reliant upon another question coming up that allowed him to crowbar in his understanding of the character of Sheila.  In response to the ToE then, I devised a sequence of activities that was focused on using 15 minutes of their 45 to plan effectively to answer the actual question, not the one that they wish had been set.  This involved brainstorming what they knew already about the Inspector, selecting apposite quotes (ensuring that at least one of these was from the stage directions to allow the response to include reference to stagecraft - from the Advanced section of the ToE), exploring the language of the quotes for dominant and subversive interpretations and then evaluating the quotes in light of the essay question.

And here is the response that the same student generated during this double lesson in response to the activities I had set; activities which had been informed by the Taxonomy of Errors (at this stage of the year my lessons are almost entirely planned in response to their emergent needs). I'm not claiming that it is a startlingly better response, but it does tackle the intermediate error of not focusing on the question to ensure he has a chance at the top marks.  Further to this it addresses the advanced error of a lack of reference to stagecraft and deepens his use of language analysis from a straightforward discussion of the word 'horrible' to a more convincing analysis of the words 'taking charge masterfully' in a better quotation that, again, had more resonance with the actual question he had been asked to answer.

So there you have it.  In my classroom the Taxonomy of Errors is used for three purposes.  In its most simple guise it tells the students what mistakes have been made, by others as well as themselves, so that they can get a sense of their achievements alongside those of their peers.  At a more sophisticated level the Taxonomy of Errors allows me to rank the impact of different errors on their marks and/or grades by showing them how basic or intermediate errors can undermine work that in other ways might have the potential to achieve highly.  But the Taxonomy of Errors is at its most effective when it informs my planning so that students are taught (or re-taught) the knowledge or skills that had been demonstrated so poorly in their submitted work.  The Taxonomy of Errors is at its most potent when it is used in this way and results in the students being asked to edit or rewrite the error-strewn original in a conscious attempt to improve it.  The Taxonomy of Errors is at its most rewarding when it helps make marking have a genuine impact on learning.



Practitioner-Led INSET: Marginal Learning Gains at Canons

On Monday we welcomed our staff back for the start of a

 new term and new year and for the fourth of our crucial Canons OPP INSET sessions of the year.  For this INSET day our main focus was  on in-class evaluation processes, but we wanted to start the day with an activity that involved all teachers in understanding the concept of Dave Brailsford's Marginal Gains ethos that underpinned the successes of cycling's Team Sky and Team GB in 2012.

 

The start of the session involved asking staff to identify Dave Brailsford (I've never seen PE staff so keen to contribute to an INSET Q&A - Thanks Alex!).  We then watched the video of Brailsford explaining to BBC Breakfast the theory behind Marginal Gains and how it helped his teams achieve success this year.  A summary of the key points outlined in his interview can be seen to the right, which was shared with staff in the context of Canons.

Work has already been done at Canons to disaggregate the Ofsted outstanding criteria.  Following a suggestion by Alex Quigley at Huntington School (@huntingenglish to the twitterati), the aim of this session was to 'crowdsource' these ten disaggregated criteria, disaggregating Ofsted outstanding even further to allow it to be conceptualised in terms of concrete classroom practice.

 

The key point made throughout this session was that as an already outstanding school aiming to become great, we need to be looking to Marginal Gains to help us on that journey.  We also insisted that the vast majority - if not all - of these Marginal Gains were already present somewhere within the school in the classrooms of our colleagues.  This informed the first part of the 'crowdsourcing activity'.

 



Identifying Marginal Learning Gains

Teachers were asked to take ten minutes to consider the ten disaggregated areas of the Ofsted outstanding criteria and consider what aspects of their own classroom practice they were proud of and that would constitute a potential Marginal Learning Gain to other teachers.  They were asked to "sweat the small stuff" and "look after the pennies to save the pounds", concentrating on the 1% gains that would be relatively easy for colleagues to take on. 




Good ideas from our own classrooms

Over the course of the ten minutes some staff got straight to it, whilst others spent time considering their contributions.  Some moved around a large number of tables whilst some decided to stick with one or two.  The aim was to have at least twenty suggestions for each area, requiring a contribution of at least four ideas from each teacher in the room.  The best oral feedback I have had so far is that the focus on our own strengths was really heartening for staff.

 

Literacy, oracy and numeracy highlighted

Of course, during this process there were a few areas of the Ofsted outstanding criteria that received more comments than others.  To help ensure all areas received equal attention I buzzed around shouting out where we could do with more comments and reminding colleagues of the wonderful work that they had done or were doing that I had seen or heard about: Not a bad way for any member of SLT to begin the year, shouting out positives.

 

Once the ten minutes were up I called for staff to stop and, as they expectantly and longingly looked at their chairs, asked them to find an area of the disaggregated Ofsted outstanding criteria where they felt less confident and, in discussion as groups to go through the suggestions made in the first activity to identify the Top Ten Tips on the sheet that could be passed on to all teachers, including newly appointed NQTs and our next wave of PGCE students.



Interdependent learning

Over the next ten minutes each table identified their own ways to reduce down the suggestions that they had inherited.  Some got straight to it and circled the ones that stood out most to them.  Others took time to consider how different suggestions could be amalgamated to ensure that no good idea was lost in the process.  Some groups appointed someone to make decisions for them and some gravitated towards a powerful personality.  Some bickered and others agreed wholeheartedly.  Some struggled to complete the task so rounded were their discussions.  It was not unlike watching learners of any age complete a task rooted in interdependence and collaboration: a pleasure and a privelege.


Reducing lists to Top Ten MLG tips

The point of asking the teachers to create a Top Ten Tips was to ensure that the final ideas were refined enough, and by asking them to lead on this distillation process in an area of relative weakness or uncertainty for them was to ensure that the tips created would be relevant to those most in need (or in want) of their development.  Having involved them as experts in specific areas we wanted to engage them as the critically reflective practitioners we know them to be.

 

 





The purpose behind the whole activity was twofold.  Firstly, to take the time at the start of the new year to remind our staff that they are outstanding at what they do.  Secondly, to support them in their individual and collective quests to get ever better.  We asked them, in their own time after the day to look over the Top Ten Tips in the ten disaggregated areas of Ofsted outstanding criteria and identify eight areas of practice the would like to tweak.


Very much a labour of love

In order to show teachers the value of the activity that they had participated in and the importance of their contribution to that process we made a decision very early on to have the 100 Marginal Learning Gains identified by our staff during the day printed professionally on the day itself.  Using the artwork and the same quality paper as we use for our school brochures we commissioned our usual printers to undertake the task for us.  The aim was to use the plenary session for the day to give this quality product back to its authors.  The big shame of the day was that technical hitches at the publishers meant that they arrived 30 minutes late!!

Intro & contents of our MLG booklet

As well as using the artwork of our school brochure we decided to lace the booklet with images related to cycling, Team Sky and Team GB to retain the theme that had dominated during the presentation and to reinforce the notion of excellence (or greatness) that is at the heart of what we are doing.  Using shutterstock for selecting these images ensured that we were copyright-safe.

MLG booklet printed the same day!!

The work that was put into the booklet by myself and our school Office Manager, Jackie, was well worth the time and the very reasonable price.  A photocopied booklet printed in school could not possibly, however lovingly crafted, have conveyed the same sense of quality and professionalism.  Having collated the ten groups of Top Ten Tips for each area of the disaggregated Ofsted outstanding criteria, we typed them and sent them off to the publisher where they were aligned with fabulous pictures of our staff and students.

MLG Wheel for Self-Evaluation

The main focus of the booklet, though, is the Marginal Learning Gains wheel that sits at its centre in between photos of Bradley Wiggins (representing individual success) and Team Sky (representing school success).  With thanks to Zoe Elder (@fullonlearning) amongst others, we have borrowed the ideas of others to produce a beautiful 'crowdsourced', expertise-laden, development-focused booklet that is all about the Marginal Learning Gains and I couldn't be any prouder of the process that our staff went through in this INSET day or the product that they created.