T&L Blog (Special Edition) PGCE Research into the SEN students in the Responsibility Room, by Elif

 

Dear WA colleagues,

I would like to present to you one of very excellent examples of research conducted by one of our PGCE students, Elif (who was on placement at WA in Terms 1/2). I we lucky enough to visit the PGCE presentations with Yamina in Term 2 and listened to some really useful findings from action research at WA. Below, is a synopsis from Elif from their studies. I really hope you enjoy reading about this work and this, in turn, feeds back into our conversations about how and why we do things.

The Responsibility Room at WA:

The research conducted aimed to look at the effectiveness of G22 (the Responsibility Room) for SEND students specifically, at Westminster Academy. The rationale behind this research was due to the high number of SEND students at this school, and G22 being a key aspect of the behaviour policy. This research aimed to reveal any patterns (if any) between SEND students and the responsibility room. Existing literature implies that there are many reasons for behavioural issues, one being the four areas of SEND, which is reflected through an iceberg model (DfE 2015, cited in Sazkville-Ford, 2020). The process of the research included conducting unstructured interviews with SLT and different department teachers. The reason we took this approach was because we were interested in qualitative data. Given that we have built rapports with teachers, unstructured interviews allow us to ask follow up questions to enable teachers to explain their responses to open questions and be honest, increasing the validity of our research.

Specific findings on G22 and SEND included: the main reasons for students getting sent out were: disruptive behaviour, defiance and rudeness. All interviewees mentioned the importance of “knowing students” and looking at SEND profiles and strategies before giving out reminders that lead to being sent to G22.

Approaches taken by teachers, for SEND students:

- "For students with SEND I use several methods to de-escalate the situation for example: changing the tone of my speech to be clearer and calmer. Signalling what zone, I am in, also using verbal reminders throughout the class so it is not just directed at one student."
- Tries different ways to manage behaviour before sending student to G22 (e.g. “gentle approach”, reminding them verbally, giving verbal and written instructions)


Effectiveness of G22:
- "G22 serves its purpose of allowing students to reflect, but It is not effective for SEND, nor is the timings that students sit in, effective for their academic progress."
- "It definitely puts students behind by a lot – part of this is because some students are consistently in G22. It does not help when they have not had a successful restoration period and continue misbehaving the following lesson. Again, this causes a loss of learning for them”
- G22 is not “fully effective”
- “students do NO work while in G22”, and when they come back to lessons, they are clueless, they also tend to use G22 as an excuse for not having complete work
- “G22 can become a security/safety blanket as they sit there and do no work”
- “I use G22 as a last resort”

The interviews gave us a better picture of what some teacher’s thought of G22 and its effectiveness, specifically for SEND students. Recommendations were made by teachers as well as us (the researchers) in order to implement a better behaviour policy that works for all students with different needs. One being using LSAs to have 1-1s with students outside of the classroom, or forming focus groups with SEND students and using spaces such as break out spaces, global cafe, pods in the school. Our findings also concluded that spending 24 hours in G22 is not beneficial for SEND students and there needs to be other spaces / classrooms used in order to meet their needs. Another point highlighted was the importance of teachers knowing their students well and reading their SEND profiles/ strategies shared with them before sending students to G22 as there is no ‘one-size fits all’ consequence. These recommendations align with the schools trauma informed approach as it considers all types of factors that may be going on students’ lives. This is a small-scale study and more can be done to add to this research.

Thank you for reading this, and we hope we receive more very insightful research from our semester two PGCE students. 

Russell

T&L Blog Term 3 Week 4: Impact of informal mentoring on young people

Dear WA

I hope everyone is well and wishing you a really restful festive break when it comes around! For this final bitesize research article of T2, I was interested to read a study about the importance and power of informal mentors in the lives of young people. 

Objectives: To understand the impact of informal mentoring on the lives of young people.

 

Summary: 

• This study argues that informal mentoring is classified as relationships forged by young people and their teachers, sports coaches or other professionals working within their schools. 

• Using a large set of longitudinal data, this study states that 15% of young people stated that their most important mentors were teachers or sports coaches in their lives.

• The authors argue that these kinds of relationships have a significant impact on the lives of young people, including in their attainment, and in their likelihood of going to university.

• They also argue that the impact of these kinds of relationships are amplified for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as in schools where students have a strong sense of belonging.

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

• Does the idea of informal mentoring resonate with me? Have I had an informal mentor? Do I act as one for any students?

• How might this impact my conception of being a tutor?

• What support might I need to do this kind of work more effectively?

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

Thanks, Jaya