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A message from Patrick Leeson:

11 February 2016 weekly update

11 February 2016

This week we have the Vulnerable Learners Strategy and Pupil Premium Achievement Gaps

Dear Colleagues


Vulnerable Learners Strategy and Pupil Premium Achievement Gaps

We are about to publish our Vulnerable Learners Strategy, which brings together in one document all the actions we are taking in partnership with schools to improve outcomes for vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people. It also sets out examples of good practice in schools and strategies that are having some impact in narrowing achievement gaps and promoting greater social mobility.

The Vulnerable Learners Strategy is our attempt to move this agenda forward in Kent in a more significant and joined up way.We expect to publish this document in March.

Let us consider some of the challenges. In Kent a child or young person who is eligible for free school meals is likely to achieve less well than similar pupils nationally. Gaps are wider in Kent than the national average achievement gaps for the end of Primary and Secondary school at ages 11 and 16, and the situation does not improve by age 19. While standards of attainment continue to improve overall each year, with Key Stage 2 outcomes in line with the national average and GCSE outcomes above the national average, the outcomes for pupils on free school meals have shown limited improvement in the last two to three years.

In 2015:

  • The percentage of FSM pupils in the Early Years Foundation Stage achieving a Good Level of Development improved to 60.1% compared to 57.6% in 2014. Overall 74% achieved a Good Level of Development. However, at the same time the achievement gap widened to 15%, compared to 2014 when the gap had narrowed to 12%.
  • At Key Stage 1, the attainment of FSM pupils improved at Level 2B and above and at Level 3 across all subjects. These improvements reflect a three year upward trend, which is positive.
  • At Key Stage 2, there were very small improvements in the gaps in attainment for FSM pupils. The level 4 attainment of FSM pupils in Reading, Writing and Mathematics combined improved from 65.5% in 2014 to 67.3% in 2015. Overall 80% of pupils achieved this outcome. The gap between these pupils and non FSM pupils reduced very slightly for the third successive year from 17.8% in 2014 to 17.6% in 2015. The national gap is 15%.
  • At Key Stage 4, the attainment gap between FSM pupils and their peers for 5 or more A*- C grades at GCSE including English and Mathematics was 33.8%, compared to 34.3% in 2014. The national gap is 27%. Overall 57.3% of pupils in Kent achieved this outcome. While the gap narrowed slightly, more FSM pupils achieved this GCSE benchmark, 30.6% compared to 26.5% in 2014, and compared to 63.5% of non FSM students. At the same time 46 Secondary schools reduced the FSM gap compared to 41 schools in 2014.
  • At A Level and Post 16, the level 2 attainment gap for FSM students narrowed by 5 points to 20% in 2015 compared to 25% in 2014. While this is welcome improvement it is still above the latest available England gap of 17% and places Kent in the bottom quartile for the country.
  • The level 3 attainment gap remained static at 32% for 2014 and 2015. This is above the latest available England average of 25% and places Kent in the second quartile for the country.
  • The latest Learning Plus UK data set (November 2015) shows that FSM students attain on average 15 points fewer than non FSM students for each qualification type. Overall retention at post 16 for FSM students in Kent is 61% compared to a national FSM rate of 68%. The overall retention rate is 88% in Kent, which is in line with the national rate.

So what should we be doing, or doing more of, or more effectively?

The Pupil Premium currently delivers £50 million pounds ‘additional’ funding to Kent schools. How schools use the resource makes a difference. Some schools are succeeding in narrowing achievement gaps, for example 55 schools have a three year improving trend in narrowing gaps. Pupil Premium funding is now also available for Early Years settings.

  1. The first strategy is to do the core business well, which means ensuring all teaching is good, and teachers improve by working closely with other teachers and learn from the best. The test of good teaching is the achievement of expected and better than expected rates of progress for all pupils. Too much variation in the progress rates for different groups of pupils would suggest the need to re-think teaching approaches.
  2. Consistently good teaching is best achieved in school cultures that support teacher development and improvement, and professional learning, where coaching and collaboration are given more time than compliance activity and where monitoring activities give teachers solutions and ideas for achieving a better outcome.
  3. The evidence suggests that schools that avoid in-school social segregation, for example by rigid ability and attainment grouping with little fluidity, achieve better engagement, higher levels of motivation and more positive attitudes by learners, especially those that are likely to experience disadvantage.
  4. Increasingly, schools are paying more attention to character education, focusing on developing children’s and young people’s attitudes and aptitudes, to improve resilience, self-motivated learning, perseverance and ambition. Social and cultural capital, confidence, self-control and self-belief are as important as cognitive ability for success in education and the labour market. Engagement in enrichment activities help to develop these qualities, including sports, after school clubs and trips. The challenge is to ensure pupils on free school meals participate in them and get the benefits.
  5. Schools that adopt a growth culture that embeds the belief that all children can do better than expected, that their innate abilities and aptitudes can be improved with the right support, and that promotes a culture that does not give up on any child, are more likely to get the engagement and effort by all children to do well.
  6. The Sutton Trust’s evidence papers, including the most effective and low cost strategies in their Teaching and Learning Toolkit, are not used as widely and consistently as they could be by schools to narrow achievement gaps. These proven strategies include the regular use of helpful feedback to pupils, peer mentoring and peer assessment, the use of meta-cognition which encourages pupils to reflect on and develop their learning techniques and habits, and the development of mastery learning (which involves regular practice) and the use of coaching for children and staff. A recent report by The Sutton Trust concluded that while more than 60% of schools had accessed and knew about the Toolkit less than 10% of schools were using the strategies effectively.
  7. And lastly, some children need more teaching as individuals and in small groups in addition to whole class lessons and some children need more help and time to do homework, often in the school because they cannot do it at home. At a time when it is estimated that 50% of children are having extra tutoring outside school, it is not unreasonable to expect that disadvantaged children would need additional teaching and coaching. They are also likely to need the support of nurture groups to build relationships and attachment to learning.

The Local Authority, in trying to support this vital effort to narrow gaps and improve life chances and social mobility, has also taken steps to use its resources differently. We have:

  • Funded and promoted school collaborations and school to school support, as one of the best ways to support teacher development and spread the influences of the best practice in improving teaching and raising standards, including narrowing achievement gaps.
  • Devolved resources for special educational needs, including the Specialist Teaching and Learning Service, to District LIFT (local inclusion forum team) meetings coordinated by lead Special Schools and overseen by executive groups of Headteachers. These are designed to provide support to schools to achieve better outcomes and narrow gaps for SEN pupils.
  • Allocated outreach funding to Special Schools, to provide more bespoke training and advice to mainstream schools on more specialist aspects of SEN, including autism and speech and language needs.
  • Rolled out a new system for allocating high needs funding to schools, for pupils with special educational needs, to support earlier intervention and a more flexible approach to targeting the available finding to where it is most needed.
  • Re-organised the Pupil Referral Units, including the Education Health Needs Service, and devolved or delegated the funding to local management committees run by headteachers, or to groups of schools that wished to collaborate on alternative provision rather than have a PRU. This was designed to have more local decision making and flexible use of resources to support vulnerable pupils at risk of exclusion.
  • Developed and delivered a new Early Help and Preventative Service, which is designed to work closely with schools in providing more responsive and timely additional support for vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people, and their families. This resource should also be used to have an impact on improving outcomes for these pupils, on removing barriers to their learning and engagement and to narrowing achievement gaps.

I would ask you to ensure that your school is engaging effectively with these new ways of working and, we think, improved ways of using our resources for the most vulnerable learners. I would also ask that you keep under review the school’s use of the Pupil Premium and approaches to narrowing achievement gaps; to undertake a Pupil Premium review if that would be helpful; and to show willingness to learn from other schools that are demonstrating success in narrowing gaps.

Patrick Leeson
Corporate Director for Education and Young People's Services