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Bridging the Attainment-Deprivation Gap: Insights from Scotland

Explore the educational landscape of Scotland and the link between student attainment and deprivation. Learn how data can drive meaningful conversations, improve teaching, and create a self-improving system. Discover the dangers of high-stakes data and the importance of using reliable, cost-efficient information to promote equity and progress.

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Bridging the Attainment-Deprivation Gap: Insights from Scotland

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  1. Breaking the link between attainment and deprivationEdinburgh, June 5th 2015 Sue Ellis, Strathclyde University

  2. Average school-leaver attainment by area deprivation in Scotland

  3. Poverty: Scotland’s Landscape • We need to take account of: • The geography of poverty in Scotland • Almost two thirds of pupils in poverty attend schools serving relatively affluent neighbourhoods • The attainment gap exists within every school - must be addressed by every school • The policy climate/process in Scotland • Devolved, premised on a single outcome, on difference and on teacher professional judgement

  4. What matters for teaching and learning?

  5. Useful Data, Well Used … • Data can: • show which groups are served well/not well by the system, identify disproportionate impacts & possible issues • help professionals identify and explore aspects of pupil performance that matter for progress • prompt conversations about possible ways forward for individuals/groups & systems; help determine goals and monitor progress

  6. Useful data, well used • It can also: • foster a culture of inquiry • ground creative teaching/ potential solutions in clear evidence & a theory of change • aid communication within an organisation • identify local examples of highly effective practice, so that all can learn from them.

  7. What to avoid: the dangers of high-stakes data • Enforces, centralised, unresponsive policy implementations • Skews delivery priorities towards narrow, skills based curricula targets and groups • De-professionalizes teachers & alienates the best –loss of agency • Puts children under pressure • Diverts resources to admin/compliance systems • Polarises the system - less equity (‘sink/star’ schools) • Quickly becomes unreliable - Norfolk, Philadelphia, Atlanta….

  8. What Sort of Data is Useful? • Reliable • Cost efficient • Experiences & beliefs within the system • Attainment on key aspects that matter for progress, not general levels • Quick and easy to administer/analyse • Locally marked and owned • Criterion referenced –tends to skew attention to atomistic criteria – although proxy-measures • Standardised – allows comparisons across groups and over time

  9. What matters are the conversations that spring from data… Timing, implementation & knowledge - creating narratives of good data use • Mobilize teacher knowledge & know-how • linked to the data • timely arrival, alongside the data • fostering a policy of recognition - categories that may need help / what may work –prof. narratives • Local Control - school/ teacher decisions from a central bank • WHAT data • WHEN useful • HOW used to enhance teaching and learning

  10. A self-improving system • robust professional knowledge • Grounded conversations that embrace complexity • political / media restraint & (re)education • careful implementation • A system that works • in Scotland • for Scotland

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