My First Lesson Visit to a Group with a High Proportion of PP Learners

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.