Making a difference to disadvantaged children in Hampshire John Clarke January 2014

2. Making a difference to disadvantaged children in HampshireJohn ClarkeJanuary 2014

3. A reminder - the role of the local authority Working with headteachers, school governors and academy sponsors and principals, local authorities should promote educational excellence for all children and young people and be ambitious in tackling under-performance. take rapid and decisive action in relation to poorly performing schools, develop robust school improvement strategies. promote high standards in education by supporting effective school to school collaboration and providing local leadership for tackling issues needing attention which cut across more than one school, such as poor performance in a particular subject area across a cluster of school.

4. Ofsted’s view • The best authorities monitor performance effectively and intervene appropriately and in good time; • They use the most effective schools and heads to support others to disseminate good practice; • They use the full range of their existing powers to serve warning notices, appoint additional governors, or indeed replace governing boards with IEBs. • These authorities do not adopt a narrowly ideological position on schools that are outside their formal control but see it as their duty to ensure that all schools are part of the same family delivering high-quality provision for all children. • M Wilshaw; Sheffield, January 2013

5. Strengths: 0-11 • Considerable improvement in early years (59% compared with 52% nationally) • Better than national average for youngest children on FSM and narrower ‘gap’ • Much better attainment for youngest children who have English as an additional language • Better than England and places like Hampshire for 7 year olds • Good results for 11 year olds (2 points better than national) • The gap (FSM and non FSM) narrowed again • Better than national average for 11 year old children from BME backgrounds • Improvement of attainment of 11 year olds in care

6. Strengths: 11-19 • Back up to the national average for 16 year olds • Improvement in the attainment of 16 year olds from BME backgrounds • Improvement in overall performance of 16 year olds in care • Results at post 16 at or above national average on most measures • Good success rates for apprentices

7. Weaknesses • Progress between ages 7 and 11 only at national average • 14 primary or junior schools (out of 319) ‘below the floor standard’ • Gap (FSM/non FSM) still a little wider than nationally for 11 year olds • Not good enough at GCSE. Too many secondary schools (of all types) under-performing and a number have come off the boil • 7 secondary schools ‘below the floor standard’ • Gap (FSM/non FSM) for 16 year olds unacceptably large – among the largest in the country • Too few 16 year olds in care attaining 5 A*-C including English and maths There is a marked difference between the performance, overall, of secondary schools compared with the performance, overall, of primary schools.

9. Conclusions from visits to Hampshire secondary schools in the spring and summer of 2013

10. The profile of students on free school meals is now very high.Previously, in most schools, these students were lost in the overall cohort. Their progress was everyone’s business but no one chased it down. This is changing quickly. The best schools get this.

11. Students on free school meals have unique combinations of barriers that limit their progress………many schools do not know students well enough and are too slow to address the barriers in personalised improvement plans.The understanding of how to identify and meet needs has to be improved – along the lines set out in the PEP toolkit. The best schools get this.

12. Individual teachers are not at the heart of schools’ efforts to make sure that students on free school meals achieve. The first action is often to reach for an intervention rather than to consider the quality of teaching overall – and good quality first teaching is often not the norm in lower attaining sets.Leaders need to lead on it and keep on keeping on. The best schools understand that spending the Pupil Premium wisely is only part of the solution (probably not the greater part of the solution).

13. Schools are not always sure what is, and what is not, working for this specific group of students. Even where self evaluation is very strong at the level of the whole school and a wide range of methods is used to gather intelligence, the impact of the school’s work on the attainment of students on free school meals has usually not been measured.Schools need to sharpen their strategies for evaluating their impact on the progress of students with free school meals. Even the best schools find this hard.

14. The expected impact of interventions for students on free school meals is usually not ambitious enough. In some schools it often seems enough to be ‘doing something’.The assessment of impact needs to be much earlier than is the case in most schools to allow for the revision of plans or for abandoning them.Impact has to be judged on the degree of accelerated progress that has been made. Few Hampshire schools get this.

15. 6 Students will not do well unless they want to. Students will not do well unless they believe they can.Is this commonly understood and acted upon by teachers?Does the school culture and its interventions specifically set out to build ownership, belief in success, resilience, perseverance? Some teachers and some schools tacitly believe that students who fail, or are going to fail, have simply made a lifestyle choice. The best schools don’t.

16. 7. The attendance of students on free school meals in Hampshire secondary schools is four times worse than that of the general population. 1 in 12 days are missed. In most schools family issues or issues of personal engagement are not addressed early enough. Some of the issues are very difficult to solve – though not for all students on free school meals. Improving attendance has to be pursued with all means at a school’s disposal.

17. “These children lack more than money; they lack parents who take responsibility for seeing them raised well. It is this poverty of accountability which costs them. These children suffer because they are not given clear rules or boundaries and have few secure or safe attachments at home.”My last school succeeded because it took on the mantle of parenthood for our most vulnerable children. We were also tough with those parents who were unwilling to support us”. Michael Wilshaw, October 15 2013

18. 8. Most schools are beginning to think more deeply about curriculum and it is becoming more objective led, based on assessment, than coverage led. There is still some chasing grades but a recognition that this will not lead to more successful adults. Many schools are now offering a different curriculum to year 7 students who are not ‘secondary ready’.All work, throughout the school, to match curriculum to student need is to be applauded. It is to be celebrated, with students and parents alike, not hidden away as though the school was ashamed of it.

19. 9. ‘Ability’ can only be used by professionals to describe what someone can do today. It cannot be used to predict what could be achieved tomorrow.Too many schools are trapped in a closed mindset and it is proving extraordinarily difficult to change.

20. 10. Expectations of students on free school meals are not, generally, high enough. If progress is not accelerated in years 7 and 8 it’s usually all too late by year 9 even if ‘expected’ progress is made in Key Stage 3. Too many schools still allow what has been attained in the past to dictate what will be attained in the future and too many only begin meaningful target setting in year 9.Schools need to work backwards from success at GCSE and plan each student’s journey to that success from when they enter the school. More schools are talking of success for all – and meaning it. More schools are talking about 4 levels of progress – not 3 - for some students and working to achieve that.

21. One School System: 2013

22. Hampshire Conversions 2013

23. A bit disingenuous • The Hampshire system converted 711 students from below L4 in each of reading, writing and maths to the GCSE gold standard • Added to the others they produce a county average of 82% conversion overall • There were still 2,429 students who had a level 4 in reading, writing and maths in 2008 who didn’t progress to the GCSE gold standard – and that’s the issue. We’re losing far too many young people along the way. All schools need to accelerate progress if the system is to recover. Some schools need to consider their mindsets.

24. What did Southampton do, and still does? • Headteachers believe they can do it and believe they can create the kind of schools that will achieve it • They work on the mindsets of children and adults • They don’t worry about children’s ‘intelligence’ or talent • They concentrate on the things that work and count most and they teach the children they have, not the ones they might have had • They work together, sharing data, challenging each other, spreading good ideas that ‘have the promise’ of working or have been shown to work • They have generated slogans as shorthand for their work.

25. Fixed and Growth Mindsets

26. What did Southampton do, and still does? • Headteachers believe they can do it and believe they can create the kind of schools that will achieve it • They work on the mindsets of children and adults • They don’t worry about children’s ‘intelligence’ or talent • They concentrate on the things that work and count most and they teach the children they have, not the ones they might have had • They work together, sharing data, challenging each other, spreading good ideas that ‘have the promise’ of working or have been shown to work • They have generated slogans as shorthand for their work.

27. What did Southampton do, and still does? • Headteachers believe they can do it and believe they can create the kind of schools that will achieve it • They work on the mindsets of children and adults • They don’t worry about children’s ‘intelligence’ or talent • They concentrate on the things that work and count most and they teach the children they have, not the ones they might have had • They work together, sharing data, challenging each other, spreading good ideas that ‘have the promise’ of working or have been shown to work • They have generated slogans as shorthand for their work.

28. “Some recent philosophers have given their moral approval to the deplorable verdict that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, one which cannot be augmented. We must protest and act against this brutal pessimism. It has no foundation whatsoever.”Alfred Binet (1909) Les Idées Modernes sur les Enfants, Flammarion: Paris, quoted in Bill Lucas and Guy Claxton’s book, New Kinds of Smart

29. What did Southampton do, and still does? • Headteachers believe they can do it and believe they can create the kind of schools that will achieve it • They work on the mindsets of children and adults • They don’t worry about children’s ‘intelligence’ or talent • They concentrate on the things that work and count most and they teach the children they have, not the ones they might have had • They work together, sharing data, challenging each other, spreading good ideas that ‘have the promise’ of working or have been shown to work • They’ve generated slogans as shorthand for their work.