Title: Maintaining Momentum in Primary School: messages from research and evaluation
1Maintaining Momentum in Primary School messages
from research and evaluation Presentation
Prepared for the Social Mobility and Life Chances
Forum Maintaining Momentum, Milton Hill Oxford
December 3-4 2004
- Pam Sammons Kathy Sylva
- University of Nottingham/University of Oxford
2Content of Presentation
- What is the impact of multiple disadvantage and
does pre-school promote better child outcomes at
primary school? - Evidence from the EPPE study -
- Does the primary school a child attends make a
difference to their educational outcomes? -
Evidence from school effectiveness research - What is the evidence of improvement through
inspection and has this benefited disadvantaged
groups? - Evidence from an evaluation of the
impact of Ofsted - What kinds of specific interventions promote
better outcomes for disadvantaged groups of
children? Evidence from the SPOKES study -
3Attainments of EPPE Sample at end of Year 1 by
Multiple Disadvantage
4Impact of quality and duration
5Effect of pre-school (v. no pre-school) on
social-behavioural outcomes at school entry
6The contribution of social class and pre-school
to literacy attainment (age 7)
WRITING at key stage 1, social class and
pre-school experience
READING at key stage 1, social class and
pre-school experience
7What reduces the risk of SEN?
- Higher quality longer duration of pre-school
- Integrated settings and Nursery schools
- Good home learning environment and employed
parent(s) - Pre-school reduced proportion of children at
risk of SEN from 13 to 15
8Focus of SER
- The central focus a belief in the potency of
social institutions - the idea that schools matter, that schools do
have major effects upon childrens development
and that, to put it simply, schools do make a
difference (Reynolds Creemers, 1990) - Effectiveness is not a neutral term.
Defining the effectiveness of a particular school
always requires choices among competing values
the criteria of effectiveness will be the subject
of political debate (Firestone, 1990)
9Aims Goals of Early SER
- to promote Equity and Excellence
- Clientele - poor/ethnic minority students
- Subject matter - basic skills reading maths
- Equity - children of urban poor should achieve at
same level as those of middle classes
10Focus on Student Outcomes
- For us the touchstone criteria to be applied
to all educational matters concern whether
children learn more or less because of the policy
or practice Reynolds 1997 - An effective school is one in which students
progress further than might be expected from
consideration of its intake Mortimore 1991 - SER seeks to identify the Value Added by
- schools to student outcomes
11Methodology
- mainly quantitative, but case studies important
- values reliability and replicability
- seeks to make generalisations
- works in partnership with practitioners
- values the views and perceptions of teachers,
students and parents
12The Impact of Intake
- Natural justice demands that schools are held
accountable only for those things they can
influence (for good or ill) and not for all the
existing differences between their intakes
(Nuttall 1990) - SER seeks to disentangle the impact of prior
attainment and background characteristics from
the impact of school and classes/teachers on
students progress/social or affective outcomes
13(No Transcript)
14 Example of value added feedback from Improving
School Effectiveness Project Primary Schools
AAP Results
N of primary schools 44 plt0.05 , MacBeath
Mortimore, 2000
15Defining Consistency
- Within school comparisons focus on internal
variation in effects - For different cognitive non-cognitive outcomes
- By different year groups within each school,
including variations in class or teacher effects - For different pupil groups
- - boys/girls
- - initial low/high attainers,
- - low SES/high SES
16- Effectiveness is a relative concept which is
time and outcome specific - Effective in promoting which outcomes?
- the what of effectiveness
- Effective for which student groups?
- the who of effectiveness
- Effective over what time period?
- the when of effectiveness
17Differential Effectiveness
- The size of school effects for black students
were almost twice as large as for white students
in the US (Coleman et al 1966) - Differences between public and private schools
almost twice as large for low SES students as for
middle class students, differences between
schools for high SES students small in US (Bryk
Raudenbush, 1992) - School effects vary for students by race and low
prior attainment in England. School effects
larger for initially low attaining and for black
Caribbean students (Nuttall et al 1989) - Primary school effects vary for students with low
compared with high initial attainment in England,
being larger for low initial attainers (Sammons
et al 1993)
18Equity Implications
- Dutch primary schools are highly stable in
effectiveness across grades for low SES students,
less stable in effectiveness across grades for
high SES students (Bosker 1995) - Schools matter most for underprivileged
and/or initially low achieving students.
Effective or ineffective schools are especially
effective or ineffective for these students - After Scheerens Bosker 1997
19The Processes of Effective Schools
After Teddlie Reynolds 2000
20The ineffective school (Reynolds 1995)
- Non-rational approach to evidence
- fear of outsiders
- dread of change
- capacity for blaming external conditions
- set of internal cliques
- lack of competencies for improvement
- ..may have inside itself multiple schools
formed around cliques and friendship groups ..
There will be none of the organisational, social,
cultural and symbolic tightness of the effective
school
21 Empirical Confirmation of SE Meta-Analyses
- cooperation
- school climate
- monitoring at school and class level
- opportunity to learn (content coverage - homework
- time) - parental involvement
- pressure to achieve
- school leadership After Scheerens Bosker 1997
- The most powerful factors are located at the
classroom level. Schools should address proximal
variables like curriculum, instruction and
assessment which emphasis student outcomes
Wang et al
1993
22Processes for School Improvement
- Clear leadership
- Developing a shared vision goals
- Staff development teacher learning
- Involving pupils, parents community
- Using an evolutionary development planning
process - Redefining structures, frameworks, roles
- responsibilities
- Emphasis on teaching learning
- Monitoring, problem-solving evaluation
- Celebration of success
- External support, networking partnership
23Significance of School Effects
- Although the differences in scholastic attainment
- achieved by the same student in contrasting
- schools is unlikely to be great, in many
instances it - represents the difference between success and
- failure and operates as a facilitating or
inhibiting - factor in higher education.
- When coupled with the promotion of other
pro-social attitudes and behaviours, and the
inculcation of a positive self-image,the
potential of the school to improve the life
chances of students is considerable. - Mortimore 1998143
24Impact of Inspection Outcomes of special
measures over 10 years
25Perceptions of benefits of inspections 2002/03
comparison of head teachers and teachers views
26Judgements of extent of Improvement of primary
and secondary schools since their last inspection
(2002/03 Annual Report)
27Primary schools change of inspection judgements
from first to second inspection (percentage of
schools)
28Percentage of 11 year-old pupils reaching level 4
and above in English, mathematics and science
29The proportion of good or better teaching in
primaryschools
30International Comparisons of Reading Attainment
2001IEA
31Is improvement greater in schools facing
challenging circumstances?
32Percentage of unsatisfactory /poor lessons in
primary schools going into special measures and
two years after coming out (2002/03)
Percentage of lessons unsatisfactory or poor
33Disadvantaged pupils are over-represented in
schools judged to require special measures
34Improving City Schools key features of teaching
- a high degree of consistency across the school
- high expectations of pupils, matched by well
planned support to help them meet the challenges
of the work - skilful management of pupils in classrooms and
effective use of time and resources - motivating teaching methods materials, planned
with the improvement of basic skills in mind
Ofsted 2000
35Challenges for 21st century
- Pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are more
likely than others to experience educational
failure - Reasons for eradicating school failure
- philosophical/ethical - to promote fairness
improvement in quality of life and opportunities
for all groups, to encourage positive attitudes
to future learning and self-esteem - political - to promote social cohesion and
inclusion and empower young people as citizens to
participate in a successful democracy - economic - to promote future prosperity
prevent waste of talent avoid social/economic
burden on Governments
36Maintaining Momentum in the Primary Phase
messages from research evaluation
- Pre-school provides children with a better start
to school and is particularly important in
improving attainment for low SES pupils, the
impact is still evident at age 7 years -
- Schools vary in their effectiveness. For
disadvantaged groups the effectiveness of the
primary school attended is particularly
important. - SER provides an important evidence-base on the
correlates of effective schools and teachers and
has stimulated school improvement initiatives at
national and local level. - Inspection, has helped raise overall attainment
levels and improved the quality of teaching in
primary schools. - Inspection has acted as a powerful catalyst for
improvement of weaker schools and this has
benefitted disadvantaged pupil groups because
they are over represented in such schools. - For the most vulnerable groups of pupils
intensive, structured and targetted interventions
are needed at an early stage.
37- The EPPE team
- Kathy Sylva University of Oxford
- Edward Melhuish Birkbeck, University of London
- Pam Sammons University of Nottingham
- Iram Siraj-Blatchford Institute of Education,
University of London - Brenda Taggart Institute of Education, University
of London - http//www.ioe.ac.uk/projects/eppe
- http//www.dfes.gov.uk/research/
-
- EPPE is an ESRC TLRP (Affiliate) project