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: The Impact Of Attendance On Academic Performance

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good week so far. We are all aware of the important connection that attendance has with student academic achievement, and as a result we’ve all been doing lots of work on ensuring excellent attendance, particularly in the post-Covid landscape. Therefore I was interested to come across a recent study that looked at attendance, and specifically the reasons for student absence.  

Objectives: To understand whether the reasons for student absence make a difference to the link between absenteeism and academic performance.

Summary: 

• The researchers used data in Scotland, which requires schools to note the reasons for student absences.

• They looked to examine whether or not the reasons for absence made a difference to student achievement. 

• For all different reasons of absence, there was a negative impact on student achievement. The impact of some, however, was greater than others - truancy or sickness-related absence was highest, then absence due to holidays, then family emergencies. 

• The authors of the study suggest in their recommendations that schools build support plans that target the specific reasons for absences, and therefore help students make up their academic learning, feel a sense of connection to school and then get additional support outside of school where required.

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

• How do I support the attendance of my tutees and students? 

• What are some of the individual reasons for absence?

• What support do some of my students need to help them?

• What support do I need to help with improving student attendance?

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 Exam Anxiety On Exam Performance

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone had a good week so far! As this is the final week of our YR11s being with us, I was interested to read a summary of some recent research into exam anxiety and exam performance by the Institute of Education. Objectives: To understand the links between exam anxiety and exam performance for YR11s.

Summary:

• The study revealed no clear relationship between those students with high levels of exam anxiety and exam performance
• A maximum difference of one-fifth was found between the most and least anxious groups.
• There were no meaningful differences in subgroups - including prior attainment groupings and deprivation indexes.
• This is contrary to other literature which suggests a negative impact of anxiety on test performance. The authors conclude two possible reasons for this: 1) It is possible that the motivating elements of anxiety outweigh the negative impacts 2) It is possible that structures to alleviate anxiety, such as separate rooms or extra time, are already in place.
• This study highlights the need for more in-depth research into the impact of mental health on GCSE exam performance. It also proposes a more detailed examination of the long-term impacts of exam anxiety.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How have I supported students who have exam anxiety? How can I encourage exam anxiety as a motivating factor?
• What understanding or support do I need to be able to help students who suffer from exam anxiety? Here are Paul Mulvihill’s tips for students with exam anxiety: 1. Prepare them well in advance - for example, talk them through the smaller details 2. Normalise anxious feelings or worries - e.g. if you are worried about an exam it shows you care about doing well! 3. Encourage students not to compare themselves to others and remember that exams are a tool to identify areas of development
• How might the ‘I don’t care’ attitude act as a proxy for exam anxiety? How might we deal with this?

If you would like to discuss this further with me please get in touch! I’d be delighted to hear from you!

Bitesize Research: Teacher Influence On Student Attainment

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone had a great half term, and that you’re having a good week so far. Given that we are in the thick of GCSE exams, this week, I was interested to see the TES reporting of the findings of research by the Nuffield Foundation about teacher influences on student attainment (specifically GCSE results). Objectives: To understand the influences that teachers have on student attainment. Summary:

• The data for this study was from 14,000 students, in 32 secondary schools
• The study confirms that the classroom practices of teachers do matter and do influence student results. It also shows that the classroom practices vary from subject to subject in terms of their impact.
• For example, in English lessons - facilitating interactions and discussions between students appear to be important to raising test scores
• In Maths lessons - making time for students to practice individually appears to be important in raising test scores
• Teacher ratings were also examined, and the teachers ranked most highly by peers appeared to have the biggest impact on GCSE scores
• The report authors suggest that peer observations of these highly ranked teachers are likely to be helpful in both professional learning and in improving student outcomes

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• What do I notice about my planned classroom activities and their relationship to student attainment? What evidence do I have?
• When was the last time I observed a colleague who is highly rated by students? What did I learn?
• How can I factor in time for observation in T6 of a highly rated colleague?

If you would like to discuss this further with me please get in touch! I’d be delighted to hear from you!

Bitesize Research: Role Of Perfectionism In Progress Of More Able Learners

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone has had a great week so far. I’ve been looking this week into research about more able students (or HPAs). I came across a really interesting NACE (National Association for Able Children in Education) blog post about some forthcoming meta-analysis that will be published later this year in Educational Psychology Review that they’ve conducted in conjunction with academics from York St. John University. They also presented some of their findings in this YouTube video. Objectives:

To understand the role of perfectionism in the progress and attainment of more able learners. Summary:

• This study categorises perfectionism into two categories; perfectionist strivings (extent to which students strive for unrealistic personal standards) and perfectionist concerns (extent to which students fear making mistakes or receiving negative feedback).
• This meta-analysis looked at data on 10,000 able learners who were part of 36 studies. These suggest that perfectionist concerns have the biggest impact on learning, and have a strong correlation to depression, alienation from parents, lower motivation and self-esteem.
• On the other hand, perfectionist strivings appeared to be correlated with more variable outcomes that were both positive and negative; for example, there was a correlation with strong academic performance, but also with lower happiness and lower creativity.
• The blog suggests that those working with more able learners need to be mindful of the consequences of perfectionism. They should look to reduce both types of perfectionism, but particularly perfectionist strivings.
• It proposes that teachers can and should play a role in creating environments that are less perfectionistic and focus on creativity, problem-solving and appropriate levels of challenge.
• Likewise, teachers can help more able students ‘reframe setbacks’ as an integral part of the learning process whilst being mindful that more able learners often find setbacks more stressful.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• Do any of my HPA students demonstrate the ‘perfectionist strivings’ or ‘perfectionist concerns’?
• How do these manifest in their attitude towards learning in your classroom?
• How can I help my students by focusing on creativity and problem-solving?
• What does ‘appropriate challenge’ look like in my subject?
  

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations. Thanks, Jaya

Bitesize Research: Understanding The Impact Of Sport On Student Self-Control And Attainment

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone has had a great week so far! With the excitement of Sports Day coming up, I was interested in looking at a study from the University of Cambridge in PLOS One in May 2021 that looked at how sports and exercise impact young people’s self-control, and therefore their attainment too.This was a study that looked at the data of 4,000 students across the UK. Objectives: To understand the impact of sports and exercise on student self-control and attainment. Summary: The key findings were:

• Those students who do more physical activity are more likely to have stronger self-regulation and that this, in turn, has a positive impact on academic outcomes
• Physical activities found to have the strongest impact are ball sports and swimming. This positive impact on self-regulation and on academic attainment is even more pronounced in disadvantaged children
• One recommendation from the author was to ‘rethink’ COVID catch-up discussions in line with these findings - maximising classroom time needs balance, as play and sports need to also be prioritised.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How might I support students I work with to participate in more physical activities? What positive impact might this have on them?
• How might I draw on the experiences of sports or exercise in supporting students to self-regulate in other settings?

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Within-class Attainment Grouping

By Jaya Carrier

We mostly teach at WA in mixed ability groupings, and this is underpinned by a very important part of our educational philosophy. As such, this week, I found it interesting to read about the idea of within-class attainment groupings in this summary from the EEF - namely, grouping students in mixed ability groups together with peers of a similar attainment level. 

Objectives: To understand the impact of grouping students of a similar attainment level together in lessons.

Summary:  

The key overall themes are:

• Evidence suggests that grouping students with those of a similar attainment level has a positive impact on all learners
• Despite the overall positive effect, there does appear to be less of a beneficial effect for lower attaining students
• There are some studies that suggest that grouping students in this way has a negative impact on other factors such as student confidence - possibly as it discourages the belief that attainment can be improved through effort 

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• How might considering this help the learning of some students in my lessons? What might I need to implement this?
• What impact does the currently COVID situation have on this? 
• What other strategies might be needed for LPA students to support their learning?
• How might I mitigate potential negative impacts on confidence if I were to use this strategy?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Impact of COVID on attainment

This week, I wanted to share with you something I found to be a very helpful summary of available research on the impact of COVID on student attainment from the EEF.

Objectives: To understand the impact of COVID-19 on student attainment broadly, but also on disadvantaged students from a range of existing studies.

Summary:  

The key overall themes are:

• Students have made less progress compared to previous year groups
• The attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their non-disadvantaged peers has grown

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

 

• How can I use this information to support identifying gaps in knowledge and looking to redress them?

• What classroom or school strategies might best enable rapid progress to be made to ‘catch up’?

• Do I know who my disadvantaged students are? What are their current barriers to learning? How can I use available resources to support them as much as possible?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Collective Teacher Efficacy

This week, I wanted to share with you some of Hattie’s work. Many of you will be familiar with Hattie’s work, but in summary, Hattie has led a project entitled ‘Visible Learning’ which strives to use meta-analyses to determine the strands of T&L with the largest effective sizes on student attainment and progress.

Objectives: To understand the T&L strategies that have the highest impact on student attainment and progress.

Summary:  

• Whilst much of Hattie’s work has centred around feedback, the ‘new number one’ with the largest effective size is termed ‘Collective Teacher Efficacy’ (CTE).

• CTE is broadly:

• A collective belief of a school’s staff that they can positively impact students

• A collective belief of a school’s staff that they should set appropriately high challenging expectations for all students

• Crucially, this belief needs to be continuously underpinned by the evidence of the impact that the school’s staff are making

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

 

• How do I develop this belief with those I work with?

• How do I regularly demonstrate or role model my own belief in this?

• What challenges my ability to have this belief?

• What kinds of evidence can I be using to support the fact that what I am doing is making an impact?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Emotional Intelligence and Academic Attainment

This week, I wanted to share with you some work done on the relationships between ‘emotional intelligence’ and academic attainment. This work is an early meta analysis looking at over 150 existing studies on this topic, and has been conducted by the University of Sydney in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Objectives: To understand the role of ‘emotional intelligence’ in academic attainment.

Summary:  

• There are lots of definitions of ‘emotional intelligence.’ Some definitions are around the understanding and management of one’s own and others’ emotions. Some definitions are also inclusive of character traits such as optimism and intrinsic motivation. This study looked at papers that incorporated both of these definitions.

• Emotional intelligence in general was found to account for 4% of the difference between students’ achievement. Specifically, however, the ability to understand emotions (a component part of emotional intelligence) explains about 12% of the difference. Personal emotion management skills accounted for 7% of the difference. 

• Three reasons for this correlation have been posited by the authors of the study:

• Emotionally intelligent students can better regulate their ‘academic emotions’ - namely, those that accompany academic performance (e.g. stress, anxiety, disappointment, frustration etc.) 

• Emotionally intelligent students can form better relationships with their teachers

• Many non-technical academic subjects require an understanding of human emotions and society as integral to the subject matter (e.g. in analysing a play, or in analysing the causes of the rise of a dictatorship)

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

 

• Which students’ struggle with emotional intelligence? How do I know?

• This study suggests that enhancing students’ emotional intelligence could also support academic performance. What strategies or activities could be useful to help develop this?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Metacognition and Student Progress

This week, with metacognition being a key TTB theme, I wanted to share with you the work of the EEF on metacognition. 

Objectives: To understand the role of metacognition (‘learning to learn’) and self-regulated learning in improving student progress and attainment.

Summary:  

• Metacognitive and self-regulation approaches made a large impact on student attainment - up to 7 months ahead additional progress when compared with their peers. 

• Strategies for metacognition and self-regulation worked best when taught in collaborative groups - i.e. when students could make their thought processes clear through discussion. 

• There is particularly strong evidence that teaching metacognitive and self-regulation strategies to low-achieving older students is especially effective.

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

 

• Which explicit strategies can you teach your pupils to help them plan, monitor, and evaluate specific aspects of their learning? How do these specifically look in your subject? 

• How can you promote, model and develop metacognitive talk related to your lesson objectives? 

If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: The KS3 Years and Disadvantaged Children

The third week in T3, I wanted to share with you the work of the Nuffield Foundation on disadvantage in early secondary education (KS3 in the traditional sense of YR7 to YR9) published in December 2020.

Objectives: To examine what, if any, impact the KS3 years have on attainment and progress for disadvantaged children. They looked at lots of factors, but most notably ones connected to family income and attendance.

Summary:  

• There is significant evidence to suggest that a number of educational inequalities widen between disadvantaged children and their peers across KS3. This includes attendance, attainment and progress worsening for disadvantaged children across KS3.

• The gaps in students’ self-reported outcomes also widen, particularly pertaining to attitudes towards school, perception of academic ability, aspirations for careers and further education.

• Identifying and supporting higher prior attaining disadvantage students on entry to secondary school made a difference in creating higher GCSE attainment 

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

 

• Do I know who my disadvantaged students in KS3 are? Do I know who my higher prior attaining disadvantaged students in KS3 are too? If not, how do I find this out?

• How can we support KS3 students to mitigate against some of these widening inequalities from YR7-9?

• How can we work to improve student self-perception across KS3? What has worked well? What could we try differently?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please do comment below! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.