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Deconstructing attainment gaps: How LSYPE can help explain gaps in pupil attainment
1. Deconstructing attainment gaps: How LSYPE can help explain gaps in pupil attainment Steve Gill, Schools Analysis and Research Division Zenta Henkhuzens, Disadvantage and Education Team Presentation at DCSF Conference: The Use of Evidence in Policy Development and Delivery, 9 February 2010
7. During the foundation stage, the odds of a non-FSM pupil achieving 6 points across the CLL scales are 2.5 times that of a FSM pupil By the end of KS1, the odds of a non-FSM pupil achieving level 2 in reading writing and maths are 3 times that of a FSM pupil. This gap is maintained during KS2 (doesn’t widen). The gap widens further during secondary education. At KS3 and at KS4 the odds of a non-FSM pupil reaching the threshold are around 3.5 times that of a non-FSM pupil. The ratio narrows slightly on entry to HE, but the gap is still large. The propensity for FSM pupils to enter Higher Education is low Narrowing the Gap has to start at an early age. Other departments are key partners, e.g. Department of Health Breaking the link between low income and poor attainment/achievement. Gaps open early; chances of school success are three times worse
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25. FSM pupils, on average, more likely to have the ‘negative’ characteristics FSM pupils Non-FSM pupils Lone parent 62% 20% Parents with no qualifications 36% 6% NS-SEC of routine 68% 22% No vehicle in household 50% 7% No internet 61% 18% Special Educational Needs 40% 16% No parent working 70% 9% Low aspirations 25% 14% Mean IDACI 0.38 0.18 Mean KS2 score 24.6 27.5
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28. What other factors have you done this for? Category Components Income and material deprivation Private/supplementary classes, access to computer, internet and vehicle, FSM eligibility, household income. Parental background NS-SEC, parental education levels Family composition Parental , birth position within siblings Parental engagement Parental aspirations, attitudes to reports, attending school events, attitudes towards year 10 subject choice Family employment Whether parents work Aspirations Pupil aspirations Area deprivation IDACI Pupil effects SEN, EAL, mobility, been in care, mobility, ethnicity School composition Gender of cohort, cohort prior attainment, school FSM rate. School effectiveness School KS2-4 CVA score Prior attainment KS2 average point score (only in progression model)
39. Deconstructing attainment gaps: How LSYPE can help explain gaps in pupil attainment Steve Gill, Schools Analysis and Research Division Zenta Henkhuzens, Disadvantage and Education Team Presentation at DCSF Conference: The Use of Evidence in Policy Development and Delivery, 9 February 2010
Editor's Notes
Welcome Introduce myself and Gerard Delighted to have with us Niel McLean, Executive Director of Becta; Andrea Shirley, National Agency Engagement Manager, and Vanessa Pittard Director of E-Strategy. Aims of the session today are to explore Becta’s role in ‘Narrowing the Gaps’ between disadvantage and achievement, as well as providing further details of the Home Access scheme. Also an opportunity to start a conversation about how IT can help in progressing your individual policy areas As you can see from the agenda behind me, most of the session today will be led by colleagues from BECTA but just want to kick off with some context about the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils, show you some of the latest data and tell you a little bit about what we are doing within narrowing the gaps division to tackle this issue.
Over the past 13 years the Labour Government has placed a consistent emphasis on raising standards across the board. Since 1997 school standards, measured by average attainment of the pupil cohort have risen steeply with strong improvement in national tests and examinations. However, we need to look in more detail at these results if we’re to break the link between a child’s background and their educational success and life chances. More recently, there has been an emerging focus on the distinct needs of particular groups of children from a number of perspectives; social, economic, health and educational The introduction of the national pupil database in 2002 enabled us to take huge strides forwards in identifying particular vulnerable groups of pupils of particular characteristics who were falling behind. This has historically been mirrored in international comparisons. The example I am focussing on today is specifically related to the narrowing of educational attainment gaps of school age children.
This chart shows the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006 results. The closer a country is to the top of the chart, the better its average student performance in science. The closer a country is to the right-hand side of the chart, the weaker the link between the socio-economic background of its pupils and their performance in science. You’ll note in both respects we’re above average but there is further to go to join the very best of the world’s education systems.
Our work in this area is primarily driven by PSA targets which have been around since 1998 PSA 11 is the target focussed on narrowing the gap for a number of groups This commits us to: narrowing achievement gaps at the Early Years Foundation Stage; narrowing the achievement gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and their peers at Key Stages 2 and 4; - which is my particular area of interest It must be noted that we use Free School meals as a proxy indicator for deprivation – it’s by no means perfect but it’s the best we have at the moment and identifies the bottom 15% of pupils from low income families. We are also committed to: narrowing gaps in the proportion of pupils progressing by 2 levels in English and mathematics at the end of Key Stages 2, 3 and 4; increasing the numbers of Looked After Children reaching Level 4 in English at Key Stage 2 and reaching Level 4 in mathematics at Key Stage 2; increasing the numbers of Looked After Children achieving 5 or more good GCSEs at Key Stage 4; and narrowing the gap between full-time higher education initial participation rates for young people aged 18-20 from the top three and the bottom four socio-economic classes.
So how wide is the gap for pupils in receipt of FSM at the moment and what progress are we making? Well the gap is pretty substantial – attainment gaps between FSM and non-FSM open up early and they continue to widen throughout primary and secondary education. By Key Stages 3 and 4, the odds of a non-FSM pupil reaching the threshold are around 3.5 times those of an FSM pupil. Trends over time show that FSM gaps are narrowing but only slowly and the gap that remains is still unacceptably large – particularly for white working class boys, who are our lowest attaining group. So this is the issue – what are we doing about it?
Welcome Introduce myself and Gerard Delighted to have with us Niel McLean, Executive Director of Becta; Andrea Shirley, National Agency Engagement Manager, and Vanessa Pittard Director of E-Strategy. Aims of the session today are to explore Becta’s role in ‘Narrowing the Gaps’ between disadvantage and achievement, as well as providing further details of the Home Access scheme. Also an opportunity to start a conversation about how IT can help in progressing your individual policy areas As you can see from the agenda behind me, most of the session today will be led by colleagues from BECTA but just want to kick off with some context about the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils, show you some of the latest data and tell you a little bit about what we are doing within narrowing the gaps division to tackle this issue.
Our strategy is based on five levels. Many of the intervention strategies pick up on themes addressed by Steve such as parental engagement and pupil aspirations. So how does this translate into our programme of work? The intervention strategies listed on the right hand side are aspects of many of our existing DCSF policies and programmes.
We reviewed existing policy areas and sifted out the top 8 considered to have the most impact on gap narrowing. Many of the areas identified in Steve’s research were considered at this stage. Why 11? Well we needed to be realistic. Out of over 100 different policy areas in place we needed to prioritise a manageable number to monitor with existing resource restrictions.
Here are our policy areas and programmes considered to have the most impact on pupils in receipt of free school meals. Many of these are mentioned in the White Paper 21 st century schools which promotes the role of personalised learning in schools and an increased accountability in the system for narrowing the gaps. These include such initiatives as the School Report Card and 121 tuition. I’m afraid I don’t have time to brief you on the details of each one but am happy to share further information another time. In summary most of the programmes are offering target support to schools in deprived areas or are particular intervention programmes to tackle those pupils who are falling behind. We are also strengthening accountability in the system through the school report card which will be introduced from Sept 2011 and LAs targets to narrow the gap which were introduced last year. We are also reviewing the school funding methodology to better account for deprivation but it’s not easy to align accountability and funding systems!
We also run our own action research project in over 100 schools which is trialling a range of activities to raise the achievement and aspiration of disadvantaged children. Again, I’m sorry I don’t have time to share more of this with you, it’s something I’m very passionate about and is generating some fantastic case studies. We are currently considering how we might extend this project next year.
Considering the DCSF’s making policy guidance it’s fair to say that we did not have the luxury of commissioning new research to inform our rationale. We needed to work with what was already in place, to mainstream and look to modify existing work strands to better serve the needs of disadvantaged pupils. I think it’s fair to say these were our ‘options’. Our ‘securing delivery’ has come from us acting as ambassadors in the system, identifying those policy areas as having the most potential impact on disadvantaged pupils and working with policy leads to modify their programmes accordingly. Evaluating impact is a real challenge for use. Ministers want data and they want it now. We are currently working with our stats colleagues to model the impact of a small number of our programmes. National test results form the bulk of our impact assessments.
Welcome Introduce myself and Gerard Delighted to have with us Niel McLean, Executive Director of Becta; Andrea Shirley, National Agency Engagement Manager, and Vanessa Pittard Director of E-Strategy. Aims of the session today are to explore Becta’s role in ‘Narrowing the Gaps’ between disadvantage and achievement, as well as providing further details of the Home Access scheme. Also an opportunity to start a conversation about how IT can help in progressing your individual policy areas As you can see from the agenda behind me, most of the session today will be led by colleagues from BECTA but just want to kick off with some context about the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils, show you some of the latest data and tell you a little bit about what we are doing within narrowing the gaps division to tackle this issue.
Welcome Introduce myself and Gerard Delighted to have with us Niel McLean, Executive Director of Becta; Andrea Shirley, National Agency Engagement Manager, and Vanessa Pittard Director of E-Strategy. Aims of the session today are to explore Becta’s role in ‘Narrowing the Gaps’ between disadvantage and achievement, as well as providing further details of the Home Access scheme. Also an opportunity to start a conversation about how IT can help in progressing your individual policy areas As you can see from the agenda behind me, most of the session today will be led by colleagues from BECTA but just want to kick off with some context about the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils, show you some of the latest data and tell you a little bit about what we are doing within narrowing the gaps division to tackle this issue.
What next for us? As I’ve already mentioned impact data is something Ministers want and want now. One of our challenges is to allow time for initiatives to ‘bed down’ – schools often ask us for a year or two, the minister wants it yesterday! Identifying and spreading good practice amongst our schools is a real challenge – esp in light of funding cuts to field forces. Schools and their workforce are over burdened and busy and do not have time to search online for case studies. What we need is to provide readily accessible advice and guidance. We are considering how we might expand our own Extra Mile project alongside maintaining momentum in our cross departmental policy areas. It would be lovely if we could develop a 0-19 strategy – our department is silo based, we have different teams looking at different sections of PSA 11 with schools working separately from early years, fe and 14-19. So we need to work together to identify how we can pull together a coherent narrative and strategy thereby plotting the journey of a disadvantaged child through the system. We are working closely with our delivery partners, TDA, CWDC, NC, Becta to raise the profile of NtG and identify opportunities in their work programmes to strengthen our delivery capacity.