I went to visit a year ten group with a high proportion of
PP learners. 33% of the low ability group were eligible for PP and another 33%
of the group had some form of SEN identified. I was interested to see how the
teacher managed the group and ensured all learners made good or outstanding
progress during the course of the lesson.
What became immediately apparent was that a positive
learning environment had been established and there was an atmosphere of mutual
respect as soon as the first pupil entered the room. The group was relatively
small comprising of only nine students; this small class size was fantastic as
each student received lots of personalised help by the teacher and the TA. This
has been made possible as there are five sets in this band and so class sizes
are much smaller. For my research project I am focussing on year nine PP
learners. For the A band of this year group class sizes are incredibly large
and this has proven problematic in terms of the behaviour management of some
groups where there are a great number of pupils who have behavioural issues. This
lesson visit has made me conscious that it may be essential for narrowing the
gap between PP leaners and other learners that class sizes are purposefully
made smaller.
After the lesson visit I started to think about the next
steps I now need to make and there are two actions I would now like to take:
·
I would like to put a survey together aimed at
staff who teach groups with high proportions of PP learners. To ensure this
survey reaches the right people I intend on using SISRA to identify groups in
different subjects that have high proportions of PP learners. I will then
approach the teaching staff specifically rather than sending a blanket email
which could be overlooked. My intention with this survey is to enquire about
the strategies members of staff use in different departments to help in
narrowing the gap and ask them to evaluate the effectiveness of these
strategies.
·
I would also like to shadow a PP learner for a
day and experience their school life first hand. The compartmentalized nature
of the secondary school environment naturally means that the teaching staff
have a very different experience during the school day to the students. I think
it will be unlikely that I will be granted the opportunity to be off timetable
for a whole day but I think it would be quite beneficial to consider the gap
from the student’s vantage point as well as the teacher’s. If my request is
denied then I may approach two or three PP students and ask them to complete a
reflection log of their day where they explain what tasks they did in each
lesson, how challenging they found them and the support they were given.
·
I may also use SISRA to identify year nine
groups that have high proportions of PP learners and are also quite large in
the year nine cohort. I could analyse the data and compare the progress of the
PP learners in these more highly populated groups to PP learners in far smaller
groups.
