Diversity in Our Schools

1. Diversity in Our Schools

2. Cliffe Hill is a smaller-than-average-sized primary school. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is well above the national average. Most pupils in the school come from a White British background. The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is higher than average, as is the proportion of pupils with a statement of special educational need. Since 2008, the school has had an integrated pupil referral unit for those who have autistic spectrum conditions. The proportion of pupils who join and leave the school at other than the usual times is more than that which is found nationally.  What do we mean by diversity? What kinds of diversity are ‘visible’? What kinds of diversity are ‘less visible’ or even ‘invisible’? When should we speak about ‘groups’ of children and when should we speak about ‘individuals’? http://www.kobinazrul.net/typicalDay.php

3. An OFSTED view of the characteristics of diversity • When Ofsted refers to equality and diversity, it includes the • equality strands, now called characteristics, used by the Equality and Human Rights Commission as well as social aspects such as poverty and deprivation. • The seven are: • age • disability • gender • faith and religious belief • race and ethnicity • sexual orientation • transgender/gender identity

4. National statistics, local action: what are the issues and how do we deal with them?

5. Key points – Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2007 • Nearly half of all low achievers are white British males. • White British students on average – boys and girls – are more likely than other ethnic groups to persist in low achievement. • Boys outnumber girls as low achievers by three to two. • Chinese and Indian pupils are most successful in avoiding low achievement. Afro-Caribbean pupils are the least successful on average, though their results have been improving. • Eligibility for Free School Meals is strongly associated with low achievement, but significantly more so for white British pupils than other ethnic groups. Other indicators related to low achievement, as measured in the immediate area round the student’s home, are: – levels of unemployment; – single parent households; and – parents with low educational qualifications.

6. Poor reading and writing scores at primary school are significantly associated with later low achievement. • • Not speaking English at home is typically a short-lived handicap: African and Asian students who experience it commonly recover by secondary school. • • Disadvantaged students are more likely to attend poorly performing secondary schools, and can miss out on the best teaching as a result of the 5A*-C GCSE target. • • Looked-after children and those with Special Educational Needs often do not get the support they require. • • Good schools that are particularly effective in helping students to avoid low achievement are not uniformly distributed across Local Authorities. • • Expenditure on students and a higher ratio of teachers to pupils do play a positive part, particularly for low-achieving students.

7. Toolkit to improve learning: summary overview - Sutton Trust 2011 Approach Potential gain Cost Overall cost benefit Effective +9m££ Very high impact, low cost Feedback Meta-cognition +8m££ High impact, low cost and self- regulation strategies. Peer tutoring/ +6m ££ High impact, low cost peer-assisted Learning Early +6m£££££ High impact, very high cost Intervention One--‐to--‐one +5m£££££ Moderate impact, very high cost Tutoring Homework +5m £ Moderate impact very low cost ICT +4m ££££ Moderate impact for high cost

8. What is this? Discuss this for a few minutes • Aims and outcomes • Every Child Matters: Change for Children was a new approach to the well-being of children and young people from birth to age 19, which was launched in 2004. It now has reduced emphasis. • The Government's aim is for every child, whatever their background or their circumstances, to have the support they need to: • Be healthy • Stay safe • Enjoy and achieve • Make a positive contribution • Achieve economic well-being

9. From original guidance This means that the organisations involved with providing services to children - from hospitals and schools, to police and voluntary groups - will be teaming up in new ways, sharing information and working together, to protect children and young people from harm and help them achieve what they want in life. Children and young people will have far more say about issues that affect them as individuals and collectively. Over the next few years, every local authoritywill be working with its partners, through children's trusts, to find out what works best for children and young people in its area and act on it. They will need to involve children and young people in this process, and when inspectors assess how local areas are doing, they will listen especially to the views of children and young people themselves.

10. The Victoria Climbié case was often cited as the main reason for ECM, or the main issue within ECM. The safety of children is vital – the Baby Peter case case, together with Victoria’s killing and the Soham murders, are only the latest in a long series of such cases over the last 30+ years. But ECM is about all children and about making lives positive not just preventing them from being harmed. For this reason it is very important within teacher training as it concerns every child in your class and because you will be called upon during your career to contribute to multi-agency work as appropriate.

11. Individual Differences Special Educational Needs What do we mean by these terms ? Discuss these two questions with 2 or 3 other trainees and be ready to feed back (in 5 mins)

12. A word about learning styles and multiple intelligences…. Children learn in different ways and in different contexts and sometimes differently at different times. Systems such as VAK and multiple intelligencesoffer a common-sense reminder of this and some suggestions for ways to vary the approaches, but beware of classifying children according to these descriptors.

13. VAK: visual; auditory; kinaesthetic These learning style variants are not supported by research but are a useful reminder to teachers that children should experience a variety of modes of input and activity and that many children will work better in certain modes. Kinaesthetic tasks which involve handling concrete objects and working with a partner are vital but in fact, if well designed, meet all three of these learning styles! Estimations of the distribution of the 3 styles is often said to be 30/30/40 V/A/K

14. Multiple Intelligences. Gardner, H. (1999) Intelligence Reframed. Multiple intelligences for the 21st century, New York: Basic Books.

15. The link to Assessment for Learning-1 Definition and rationale Educators make a clear distinction between SUMMATIVE and FORMATIVE assessment. One definition of this from Unlocking Formative Assessment, p2, Shirley Clarke 2001 Abingdon: Hodder and Stoughton uses a gardening analogy: ‘If we think of children as plants… summative assessment of the plants is the process of simply measuring them. The measurements might be interesting to compare and analyse, but in themselves they do not affect the growth of the plants. Formative assessment, on the other hand, is the garden equivalent of feeding and watering the plants – directly affecting their growth.’

16. The link to Assessment for Learning-2 Assessment for Learning 'Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there'. (Assessment Reform Group, 2002) QCA website

17. Assessment for Learning encompasses the top three processes in the Sutton Trust toolkit (see slide 6), all of which were low cost, high impact. • It will involve you in deciding, in the light of children’s individual differences, • how to involve them in evaluating their own and others’ work by sharing both objectives and success criteria with them, • how to support them in responding to and setting targets for improvement and • how to encourage them to have more meaningful and purposeful control over their own learning.

18. National statistics, local action: what are the issues and how do we deal with them? SEN/Diversity/EAL Log