Bitesize Research: Building Student Criticality

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good week! With our forthcoming INSET day in July, we’ve got an external facilitator session planned to continue the work we’ve been doing on anti-racism and to honour our commitment to a keynote in this area annually.  As such, this week, I was interested in seeing an article published in Edutopia, about criticality, particularly when considering multiple and diverse perspectives.

Objectives: To consider how teachers can supporting building students’ criticality 

Summary: 

• The author delineates a difference between critical thinking and criticality. Critical thinking refers to deep, analytical thinking, whereas criticality is about power, equity and anti-oppression. 

• The author suggests engaging students with particular questions to support building criticality:

• 1) The author suggests starting by using ‘what’ questions to activate critical thinking. E.g. What is your summary? What is your key takeaway? What information supports your explanation?

• 2) The author then suggests introducing criticality questions, best summarised as ‘so what?’ and ‘what next?’ questions. For example: What voices are missing here? What assumptions does this make? Can or should we take action about this to promote social change? 

  
  

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• How am I currently supporting critical thinking and criticality in my students?

• What elements of critical thinking and criticality would work well with my subject, and the topics I am planning?

• What elements of critical thinking and criticality would work well in parts of the RSHE curriculum I am teaching?

• What further support do I need on this?

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!

Bitesize Research: A Sense Of Wonder To Enhance Learning

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good week. For this first bitesize post I was really interested to read about ongoing research being done by the University of Lancaster into notions of ‘wonder’ and its role in learning and in schools as reported in the TES.

Objectives: To understand the impact of a sense of wonder in students’ learning

Summary: 

• The writer defines wonder as a ‘sense of puzzlement about something that seems important or interesting’

• Existing research has suggested that ideas of ‘wonder’ can be very powerful in terms of increasing students’ intrinsic motivation and willingness to ask questions. It also shows that a sense of curiosity or a ‘hungry mind’ is just as important as effort and intelligence in terms of determining academic achievement

• As such, the University of Lancaster are currently trying to determine the place that ‘wonder’ has in classrooms at KS2 (with the view to extending this eventually into secondary).

• They are using a theoretical framework which identifies the following strategies for promoting ‘wonder’ in classrooms:

• 1) Be mindful of student’s personal wonder experiences and guide them individually

• 2) Be a role model by sharing teacher experiences of wonder

• 3) Create conditions for exploration and creativity 

• 4) Facilitate ‘meaning-making’ within lesson content

• 5) Stimulate the imagination and creativity within lessons

• 6) Make the familiar unfamiliar - emphasise the wonder in everyday life

• 7) Encourage reflection and awareness

• 8) Enrich experiences through art, technology and nature.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• How am I promoting ideas about ‘wonder’ currently? When have I seen this in a student’s learning? How did I recognise it?

• How does this link to our ideas about student-centred learning?

• How well does this theoretical framework apply to a secondary context? And to my subject?

• What would I like to do more to promote wonder? What support do I need to do this?

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!

Bitesize Research: Impact Of Food Insecurity On Students

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good week! This week I was really interested in seeing a report of some research being published by the Institute of Education about how food insecurity, the use of food banks and the cost of living crisis influences student attainment and mental health.

Objectives: To understand the impact of food insecurity and reliance on food banks on student attainment and mental health.

Summary: 

• The authors of the study discovered that students whose families rely on food banks on average achieve half a grade lower than expected in their GCSEs.

• The report also looked at the mental health of the parents and students who started using food banks during the pandemic. 63% of parents and 53% of students reported poor mental health, compared to 33% and 44% respectively of those who do not rely upon food banks.

• The authors conclude that this is an ongoing legacy of Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. They also remark that many food insecure students might not technically be categorised as requiring free school meals.

• Overall, they conclude that 1 in 10 students nationally could be classified as food insecure.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• How might we support students who could be in difficult situations with food insecurity and the cost of living crisis?

• How well do I know my pupil premium students? What might their specific needs be?

• What support do I need further to work with students who might need help?

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!

Bitesize Research: Young Peoples' Views On RSE

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good week! I know that the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum has been something as an Academy we’ve been working really hard on, and as such, for this next edition of bitesize research, I was interested to read about some research published by the Institute of Education about the role of young people’s voices in their relationships and sex education. 

Objectives: To understand what young people nationally are saying about RSE

Summary: 

• The research found that young people specifically would like to have more learning about relationships and sex education in their schools

• Many young people who took part in this research believed that currently, RSE in their schools was patchy, awkward and lacking in what students actually wanted to know.

• The research found that young people wanted more adults to educate themselves about young people’s lives and experiences, as well as for teachers to have resources and support to enable them to feel more confident in what they are teaching.

• The research concludes that student-voice should be an ongoing part of curriculum design in RSE.

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• How confident do I feel in delivering RSE topics? What do I need support with? How does that look?

• How could we appropriately but meaningfully take some student voice about RSE?

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!