After the First Session...

Hello!

I've finally defeated the robot and here I am! It was a very positive first day for me and it reminded me of the importance of being reflective about what I’m doing and where I’m going.

When we were asked to think about what we would like to focus on for our projects my initial impulse was to look into the gap in attainment between the boys and girls with English Language as this gap has been identified and needs to be addressed. I began thinking about my two year eleven groups as the data that I have collected from when I taught them in year ten fits with the identified trend that girls are continually outperforming the boys in the subject. My two groups are reasonably similar in academic ability but with one crucial difference: one group is very boy heavy and the other very girl heavy. I have found that despite attempting to deliver the same SOW to the two groups it’s impossible not to alter my teaching methods to great extremes to accommodate the varying needs of the groups. The boy heavy group is disappointingly stereotypical in that their lack of motivation and desire to distract one another is in abundance and so can be, at times, a challenging (but very enjoyable) group to teach. On the flip side my girl heavy group has very different challenges: attempting to engage in whole group discussion often leads to eerie silence. As you can imagine it is very difficult to get them in a position where they feel confident enough to complete more extroverted activities such as drama, presenting and even simple kinaesthetic activities. The integral issue that I would like to research is whether increasingly extreme gender division has a significant impact on pupil progress.

There are, of course, a number of factors I need to consider before beginning my research:

·        Not all boys are loud and boisterous.

·        Not all girls are quiet and timid.

·        Set changes occur at least yearly impacting on gender ratio.

·        High ability sets often have a higher ratio of girls to boys due to the gender gap of attainment.

The last point is the one that I think is an important one to consider and my initial gut feeling is that girls and boys could, perhaps, be put into sets using different systems. I would therefore like to research the following areas within my project:

·        Whether mixed ability sets would lend itself to a core subject in our school context.

·        Whether an individual’s behaviour should be given a greater focus when placing them in a set.

·        Whether a pupil’s social situation should be given a greater focus when placing them in a set.

At their roots these three areas all hinge on the gender of the learner and so, over the next few months, I intend to do a little light reading around the issue before the serious business begins. If anybody has any suggestions or comments that would be more than welcome at this early stage!