Realising and measuring ‘pupil gains’ and middleclassableness? Alastair Wilson & Donald Gillies University of Stra

1. Realising and measuring ‘pupil gains’ and middleclassableness? Alastair Wilson & Donald Gillies University of Strathclyde

2. LONDON (Reuters) - A student who scribbled an expletive on an English language exam paper was awarded 7.5 percent for accurate spelling and effective communication, The Times newspaper reported on Monday.The pupil, who wrote "f--- off" after being asked in an English exam to "describe the room you are sitting in", got 2 marks out of 27 and would have got more if he had added some punctuation, chief examiner Peter Buckroyd told The Times."It does show some very basic skills we are looking for -- like conveying some meaning and some spelling," said Buckroyd, who works for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance examinations board. "It shows some nominal skills but no relevance to the task"."If it had had an exclamation mark it would have got a little bit more because it would have been showing a little bit of skill".According to The Times, to gain minimum marks in English GSCE papers -- an exam taken by hundreds of thousands of 16-year-olds across England every year -- pupils must demonstrate "some simple sequencing of ideas" and an ability to put "some words in appropriate order".(Reporting by Kate Kelland. Editing by Keith Weir)

3. AERS Learners Learning and Teaching (LLT) Network • Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS) ~ five year (2004-2008) research programme consortium involving Universities of Edinburgh, Stirling & Strathclyde with four research networks • Learners, Learning and Teaching Network Project 3: Pupil engagement in learning (2004-2008)

4. AERS Learners Learning and Teaching (LLT) Network • Outline LLT3 project research • Provide example of small constituent project • Pose issues from this research for discussion of pupil gains

5. Engagement in learning - school based project - Key research questions • What is the social context within which the school is operating? • In what ways does the school interface with this context? • What is the impact of this context on teaching and learning?

6. Engagement in learning - school based project • Ongoing 2 yr plus school based research • Large secondary school in area of socio-economic disadvantage • Researcher time allocated and teacher-researcher position, range of mutually beneficial work • Research focus from macro-meso -neighbourhood, school culture, classroom experience.

7. School stats… TABLE 2: Brookhaven school data

8. Socio-economic factors… • Reality of statistics – Local area/neighbourhood health stats, free school meals etc. • Health survey 60% of children S1-S4 experienced death of someone close to them • Lived experience of pupils – as carers, working parents/shift work • Aspirations – S4 interview data - hairdresser, secretary – logical in circumstances? • Lure of immediate increase in family income?

9. Brookhaven neighbourhood statistics Brookhaven Local council National • Income/employment deprived 34% 22% 13% • Children in workless households 50% - 18% • Male life expectancy 65.3 - 73.5 • Female life expectancy 74.4 - 79.0 • Hospital /alcohol per 100,000 1899 1240 723 • Hospital /drugs per 100,000 518 295 127 • Low birthweight per 1000 78 37 25 • Houses – owner occupied 24% 49% 63% • Adults without qualifications 57% - 33% • Single parent households 35% - 38% • Minority ethnic 4% - 3.2%

10. Aspects of school response • Broad school response to current policy • Focus on specific pupils and nurture their academic achievement • Largely successful? Small numbers careers interviews links to FE • Engaging pupils – meeting pupil cultures, footba, outdoor activities S1,library hours • Learning to Learn – making explicit aspects of learning, unnecessary in other schools?

11. Summarising LLT3 work • Effectively an action research project focused on pupil engagement in learning • Variety of means of engaging with school/pupils • Developing VLE for the school, examining teacher learning in Learning to Learn project, film making etc • Ongoing – allows research to develop in way informed by school – example PhD studentships

12. Case study: increasing poupil engagement in learning - AERS Virtual Environment:

13. Virtual environments and pupil engagement in learning • School initially experimented with a virtual environment as a means of supporting an S4/S5 modern studies class • Pupil access to notes, resources and support • Attraction to school of enabling pupils to have easy access to their coursework, resources and assignments • Interest in pupils being able to help each other in their learning • Access to discussion with other pupils and teachers outside school hours • Virtual space then expanded to include all those pupils in S4-S6

14. Teacher response to the virtual space • Some teachers found the virtual space a valuable addition to their teaching and an extremely useful way of managing resources and interacting with pupils • Others, less familiar with the technology, had difficulty in understanding ways in which the environment could be useful to them • Technology challenging for some in terms of logging in and uploading files • Support weak - researcher development time limited

15. Barriers to use of virtual space: • Only small amount of practical support and training available • Restrictions on time teachers could devote frustrated their attempts to get to grips with the technology • Initial barriers such as unfamiliar login procedures, or knowing how to add files halted their (and their pupils’) use of the environment

16. Pupil use of the virtual environment • Pupil use of the VRE grew steadily from the outset realised usefulness of having all their work safely collated in one place and easily accessible from home • ‘It helps you be more independent and kinda thing. If you’re off then you don’t go to the teacher and ask him and be dependent on him, you actually do everything yourself kinda thing’ • Only teacher had access to a networked computer, pupils then had little opportunity to access their personal work and other resources during class time

17. Incorporating into classroom ‘By the time you get it up and the time you get logged onto a laptop your period’s over. As a classroom resource, we’re a long way, you know, away from that. I think as a school we need to address our lack of ICT provision for our pupils. Unless we start giving pupils a laptop, which… if we’re expecting the kids to do things like this, and we’re expecting them to work hard and do 5 Highers, then I think they should look at some way of providing this for them’.

18. Developing the use of virtual spaces • What we did was to present teachers with a variety of tools • This approach confined new ICT to a supportive role in existing pedagogy rather than one that facilitated new approaches • Need for teachers to be involved closely with the development of the technology.

19. Developing the use of virtual spaces • Pupils interested but did not meet with young peoples’ experience of ICT. • Anticipation of teacher contact out of class/school hours. • Virtual environments for pupils need to be constructed in ways which encourage and nurture their active participation rather than passive observation.

20. A future for virtual environments? • Our research/development experience is positive BUT: • Teachers will need time and support to discover the ways in which virtual environments may effectively support their teaching • Teacher use of virtual environments needs to be recognized as a legitimate, alternative, and effective way of engaging in collaborative working and teaching.

21. School VLE concluding points… • Example of school VLE - teacher innovation problematic • Collaborative ventures with academia underdeveloped • Accessible knowledge? Access to academic research literature problematic • Time to innovate restricted – contrast to other schools?

22. Wider concluding points… • Appears a dynamic and progressive school – HMIE ‘no areas of school life ‘weak’ or ‘unsatisfactory’. • Considerable effort of school (in comparison) to manage pupil support, needs • This effort largely unfunded • Innovation is difficult both to nurture and resource – (S1 outdoor activities weekend suspended) • Despite ‘getting on with it’ reality of social & economic circumstances overshadows school • Considerable challenge to pupils

23. Questions… • How will discourse of pupil gains further impact on the school? • Increased teacher accountability, performativity and a threat to innovation? • Are pupils going to be increasingly required to be middleclassable?