Technology and School Improvement: reducing social inequity with technology

1. Technology and School Improvement:reducing social inequity with technology Becta Research Conference 2008

2. Research Questions a) How do 'turned around' schools use technology to reduce social inequity by enabling learners from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their: -achievement level -behaviour -attendance -aspiration and retention in employment, education or training? b) What characterises 'turned around' schools that use technology in order to bring about and sustain whole school improvement? c) What is successful in these schools in adding contextual value added (CVA) and what role does technology for learning strategies play in that?

3. The Study • Survey of schools removed from SM or NtI by Ofsted during 2006-7 • Quantitative analysis of these school’s KS2 (Primary) and KS4 (Secondary) attainment data • Quantitative and qualitative analysis of these schools’ Ofsted reports • Interviews with 32 key staff in 25 schools which had identified that technology had played a part in their improvement • Seven focus group interviews with pupils

4. ICT andSchool Improvement • Most schools (82%) believed ICT to have played a key role in their improvement • Secondary schools particularly had increased spending on ICT infrastructure • SLTs with commitment to ICT • Commitment to CPD for staff • Built in technical support • Use in Record keeping/data management

5. Social equity? • Majority of schools: high FSM, moderate to high deprivation • Had schools narrowed the gap? Had ICT contributed?: • Schools where CVA had improved were more likely to have widened the ‘progress gap’ (CVA) • Primary schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils had a larger gap between FSM and nonFSM pupils’ attainment (APS) • Some evidence to suggest that schools placing more emphasis on ICT were more likely to have widened the attainment (APS) or ‘progress’ gap (CVA)

6. Social equity? • Boys were the main group identified as having poor CVA (53 schools) • Second to this, higher achieving pupils (41 schools) ‘For a long time the focus has been on giving support for the less able children helping them to achieve. Then at the other end of the scale you have these really bright children and their needs are just as much as the lower ability. These children are the ones that we need perhaps to push. And so this year we have had a change we are concentrating on our more able as opposed to our less able. That is not to say that you know we are just leaving the less able or whatever but a lot of intervention is for the more able’ (ICT Coordinator, Primary School) • 69% of headteachers believed ICT had played an important role in raising the achievement levels of these identified groups of pupils

7. Knowing who is underachieving • ICT as a tool to improve the tracking and monitoring of pupil’s progress • Enables effective targeting of underachieving pupils • Can compare to attendance and behaviour data • More efficient for staff

8. Knowing who is underachieving ‘Being able to capture all the data about an individual student and so any student -I just trawl through my target group that I have got to particularly look at- its Year 9s this week-I can go in and have a conversation: I know what levels they are in English, maths and science. I know what their attendance looks like and all of that. And so from that point of view I would say it impacts on achievement because it gives us instant access to data’. (Head teacher, secondary school)

9. Involving parents • School improvement literature suggests high parental involvement is key • Half of schools indicated the need to improve communication with parents. Of these half said this involved ICT (more secondary schools) • But low levels of parental access to email / web - face to face interaction key • Text messaging and DVD as more inclusive and accessible • Parent ICT courses

10. Involving parents ‘We are aware that a large proportion of the parents don’t have [internet] access so we could never use it as a sole means of communication or even a principal means of communication. We still have to rely very heavily on letters. Electronic means, it wouldn’t allow us to contact the parents who are already difficult to contact. Because they’re the ones that haven’t got internet access’. (Head teacher, junior and infant School)

11. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning ‘From where we were in terms of a school with a notice to improve when I first came, a quarter of the lessons were inadequate, to the most recent Ofsted, which was 2007, March 2007, when no lessons were inadequate. A lot of that is to do with how staff, and I mean the ICT is a way of delivering it, the real thinking about how you break down learning and engage students in learning has gone on, but ICT is certainly an element.’ (Head Teacher, Secondary School)

12. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning • Allowing learning to be more interactive • Enabling access to a greater range of learningstrategies • Providing an alternative medium to communicate • Accompanied by an applied approach • Drawing on popular culture • Enabling flexible and distance learning • Enabling greater independent learning • Creating a positive school culture • Playing a role in accessing learner voice

13. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning: Learning Strategies ‘I think the use of the interactive white board has helped to engage children particularly, very often boys, not always, but very often the boys are a little bit anti, that can sometimes switch them on a bit’ (Head teacher, primary school)

14. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning: Applied learning ‘They know they are making their film for a real audience in a cinema and not just to look at on a laptop screen which makes a big difference in the way they function together’. (Manager of a City Learning Centre)

15. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning: Flexible and distance learning ‘It gives quite a lot of control and ownership for the groups of students perhaps who balk at the [rules of] ‘you will come in’, you will have a uniform’ and ‘this is your timetable’ ‘this is what you do’. (Headteacher, Secondary School)

16. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning: Independent Learning Primary school pupil on why he likes using computers in class: ‘Cos you can do it your own way. You can go onto what websites you want instead of, cos if you’re a quicker reader you can read the page a bit more quicker and easier but if you’re in a whole class you’ve got to wait ‘til everyone [is ready]’

17. Engaging disadvantaged pupils in their learning: Aspirations Head teacher, secondary school: ‘I think there is something about students feeling good about themselves and feeling good about the school […] When students- you know what its like- they come in and they’ve got new computers or it’s all been refurbished […] you know their esteem goes up’

18. Summary • No quantitative evidence to support a link between schools’ use of ICT and a narrowing of the achievement gap in schools. • But staff felt ICT played a strong role in school improvement in general, namely: • MIS to monitor pupil attainment and progress • Electronic registration improving attendance • Improving teaching and learning to engage disadvantaged or disaffected pupils • But caution with use of ICT to communicate with parents

19. Presentation given by Sumi Hollingworth Contact s.hollingworth@londonmet.ac.uk Project team: Kim Allen, Kuoyk Abol Kuyok, Teresa Carbajo Garcia, Merryn Hutchings, Sarah Minty, Jocelyn Robson, Nicola Rollock, Alistair Ross, Katya Williams, At the Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE)