Quality First Teaching for All

Quality First Teaching for ALL The most effective way to narrow the gaps! A Top Priority for Schools! Context and Background

Whose gaps are we attempting to narrow? Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities Disadvantaged pupils (Pupil Premium) White working class pupils (Girls as well as boys) And... Who have you got in your school?

Key Research The special educational needs and disability review. A statement is not enough (Ofsted, September 2010) Improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement in the UK – interim findings (The Sutton Trust, September 2011) Unseen children: access and achievement 20 years on. Evidence Report ( Ofsted, June 2013) Underachievement in Education by White Working Class Children. First report of Session (House of Commons Education Committee, June 2014) Cracking the code: how schools can improve social mobility (Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, October 2014)

What are the key messages from research?

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities There is inappropriate identification of pupils with SEND, when the key issue relating to their lack of progress is ineffective teaching. ‘Additional to’ and ‘different from’ provision/interventions are being used to make up for poor whole class teaching. There is a lack of understanding of the interface between underachievement and SEND.

Underachievement? Underachievement is most often due to teaching that is ‘not good enough’ and low teacher expectations. Pupils who are underachieving need something ‘different’ not more of the same. ‘Additional to’ and ‘different’ provision is underpinned by high quality teaching and is compromised by anything less.

Curriculum or teaching? The quality of teaching is more important than the curriculum ‘pedagogy trumps curriculum every time. It is clear that the way you teach and how you teach is always more powerful than just changing the curriculum’ Dr Kevan Collins (Chief Executive, EEF )

Who gets what? Disadvantaged pupils more frequently receive inadequate teaching. There are huge variations across schools

Teacher Attitudes Secondary Strong quantitative evidence showing that there are real risks of unconscious bias and stereotyping based on a child’s background, including their family income, ethnicity and SEN status. In the best performing schools, 60 percent of disadvantaged children achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, compared to only 25 per cent in the lowest performing.

Teacher Attitudes Primary Strong quantitative evidence showing that there are real risks of unconscious bias and stereotyping based on a child’s background, including their family income, ethnicity and SEN status.

Finally The effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds: over a school year, these pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of learning with very effective teachers, compared with 0.5 years with poorly performing teachers. In other words, for poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is a whole year’s learning.

What does research tell us about best practice?

The special educational needs and disability review – A statement is not enough The characteristics of the best lessons were: –Teachers’ thorough and detailed knowledge of the children and young people –Teachers’ thorough knowledge and understanding of teaching strategies and techniques, including assessment for learning –Teachers’ thorough knowledge about the subject or areas of learning being taught –Teachers’ understanding of how learning difficulties can affect children and young people’s learning. These were the essential tools for good-quality teaching with any group of children or young people.

Unseen children: access and achievement 20 years on The most successful schools recognise that raising academic achievement cannot be tackled in isolation. Teachers’ high expectations, consistently high quality teaching and learning and a relevant curriculum must be underpinned by other interventions that increase pupils’ resilience and readiness to learn, as well as developing strong partnerships with parents and carers.

Underachievement in Education by White Working Class Children We agree that there is much that schools can do to address white working class underachievement. Broader societal factors also have an enormous role to play, but this should not deflect attention from the central importance of improving school and teaching quality.

Cracking the code: how schools can improve social mobility Incessant focus on the quality of teaching – this means placing the provision of highly effective teaching, perhaps the single most important way schools can influence social mobility, at the centre of the school’s approach to narrowing the attainment gap and raising standards. This includes... ensuring disadvantaged students have (at least) their fair share of the best teachers’ time – not just subcontracting the teaching of low attainers to teaching assistants or focusing the best teachers on students at the C/D borderline or on top sets where disadvantaged students tend to be under-represented.

Identifying what matters Percentage of Achievement Variance Students Teachers Home Peers Schools Principal

Teachers’ Standards September 2012 Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils Know when and how to differentiate appropriately, using approaches which enable pupils to be taught effectively Have a secure understanding of how a range of factors can inhibit pupils’ ability to learn, and how best to overcome these Demonstrate an awareness of the physical, social and intellectual development of children, and know how to adapt teaching to support pupils’ education at different stages of development Have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs; those of high ability; those with EAL; those with disabilities; and be able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them.

Reflection Time Do all teachers in your school have high expectations for disadvantaged pupils? Do disadvantaged pupils have access to the highest quality teachers in your school? What is the quality of teaching and learning for disadvantaged pupils in your school? (Outstanding? Good? Requiring Improvement? Inadequate?) How would your teachers match up to Section 5 of the Teachers’ Standards? Do all teachers understand the difference between a pupil who is ‘underachieving’ and a pupil who has SEN – ‘a pupil who has significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of their peers’?