Leading view papers – Days 1 to 7

Improving engagement through personalisation of the curriculum: our journey

 

Priory Sports and Technology College is a mixed school of approximately 1000 students with a comprehensive intake. We are to be found in the South Ribble area of Preston. During September 2006 we became a development and research hub for deep experience. A key strategic development for the school is to design a creative, engaging two-year key stage three curriculum that will personalise the learning experience of all our students.

In order to carry out this change to the curriculum, we set up the Curriculum 2007 Hub. Its brief, initially, was to condense key stage three into two years. In my role as team leader, I am responsible for providing strategic direction for this innovation. A group of six subject leaders and the curriculum deputy, who provides advice, guidance and support on operational matters, was formed to drive this initiative forward. Not every department could be represented and the remit was to be more global in our thinking with regards to this initiative. Although subject heads may have initially opted to work in the group with an underlying sense of defending their subject area, it was encouraging to observe how quickly this motive receded. I believe that the reason for their change of heart was that they could envisage a greater degree of freedom for students and staff alike. Also, the initiative provided the chance to shake free from some of the content-driven shackles of the national curriculum.

Disengagement remains a problem in schools. The year 8 dip and its continuance into year 9 is well documented (see Ofsted 1999 and Transfer and transitions in the middle years of schooling (7-14): continuities and discontinuities in learning, by
Maurice Galton, John Gray and Jean Ruddock). We have had initiative after initiative, a literacy focus, a numeracy focus, the strategy for science and other core subjects. Yet disengagement has been the only constant in this time.

Teachers are willing to be innovative. We have embraced new technologies. Admittedly, we are often playing catch-up with students but we do react to changing methods of delivery. We use the tools such as interactive whiteboards, Power Point, animation clips and, for a while, they engage. But disengagement returns for far too many of our pupils. The national curriculum has been tinkered with and reviewed but there is a growing groundswell of opinion that maybe it’s the curriculum approach that is the cause of the disengagement. The national curriculum SATs were a tool devised to drive up standards and way of benchmarking teachers, and perhaps they have worked. We are certainly more level-aware. However, in this, have we lost our key consumers of this diet?

Key stage three is an adult construct, for adult benchmarks, and done to pupils.

The main cause of stress is a sense of lack of power or ownership. Think about it. We have all had those feelings. Do we engage when in that situation? Yet we expect young people still forming their opinions and views to sit through a prescriptive and regimented curriculum so that we can use their levels to prove how effective the school is.

We, as practitioners, are aware of disengagement and we are aware that poor behaviour results from it. This is recognised at the macro-political level, as well as at the chalk face. The following is a quote from David Milliband (2003) during his time as Minister for Schools:

‘Boredom is the bane of education … the recruiting sergeant for disaffection, truancy and bad behaviour’.

Engagement arises from a relevant curriculum that incorporates opportunities for independent and collaborative learning. Where the end point is, is the learning itself not a hoop/level to achieve? A dialogue is required between staff and students where the curriculum is joined together, not compartmentalised and, finally, where pupils are free to explore the topics investigating what interests them, and passing over what they have already learnt.

This is a wish list for teaching and learning at key stage three. It is achievable. I have experienced it within the deep learning project group we set up at Priory two years ago.

We have been working on these philosophies for some time and introduced a two-year pilot study where pupils were taught in a very different manner. The gifted and talented group, as well as the most vulnerable group, were identified and taught using project and theme-based learning. These students had contact with fewer staff delivering the curriculum and a base room for a greater proportion of their timetable. This classroom was designated to these groups, with increased access to ICT within that room. Fewer staff were identified as a key component of the intervention group. However, it was also to be an important strand in the experience that all year 7 have at Priory.

We have drawn many lessons from this deep learning project and some of the best practise was drawn into the revised key stage three. There have been more engaged pupils in both groups. Having taught both groups, in both year groups, the difference is apparent.  I meet independent and engaged students. Pupils who meet a problem and try to overcome it themselves; collaborative learners all having roles as pupil and teacher within the groups. It is also noteworthy that, to date, no one from the vulnerable group in year 8 has been excluded for any period of time, which is a rarity for comparable students in previous years. The greatest ambassadors for the initiative are the students themselves. Some quotes from the students involved in this project are provided here.

• ‘We link ideas from different subjects.’
• ‘We are developing a bigger range of skills, especially using ICT and computers.’
• ‘We do quite a lot of our own planning.’
• ‘There is more freedom in the classroom.’
• ‘We are able to work independently instead of always asking the teacher or doing copying and lots of closed questions.’
• ‘We have more control over what we do.’

We have decided to incorporate best practice from the pilot study and take the opportunity to develop some other key philosophies during our restructured key stage three. The group had a philosophy that all students have the entitlement to be functionally literate and numerate with good ICT skills at 16. If a student cannot acquire these core skills, which will equip them as lifelong learners, then we have failed them. Our second keystone is that competency-based learning is vital. Teach students how to find out information, rather than regurgitate facts, which may quickly become out of date. This is to equip our students for the rapidly evolving workplace and the challenges they will face in their adult lives.

In his autobiography, Peter Ustinov states that his favourite school report (with a touch of irony) commented thus:

‘He shows originality, which must curbed at all costs.’

Does the curriculum we currently offer most students suffocate or enable students to be innovative, be independent and be able to challenge orthodoxy? Schools must take up the challenge to create the environment for the latter to occur.

In order to do address these ethos demands, we need to restructure the timetable. We have a six-form entry in year 7 and we decided to put the year group into four bands. The most vulnerable, and those needing most support with literacy and numeracy, will be put into a class of 25 maximum, known as the ‘intervention group’. The most able, the gifted and talented cohort in the year, will be put into a group of 30. There will be a further cohort of two classes that we identified as the ‘core’.

Finally, there will be a ‘booster’ group for either literacy or numeracy needs. These students should be able to access extra lessons in either subject, dependant upon their particular needs. All of these groups will receive more literacy and numeracy lessons in their first year. It is envisioned that all but the intervention group will complete most of key stage three in two years, but will not sit their SATS until the May of year 9. Our aim is to improve engagement and learning. Any improvement in SATs levels is a by-product.

In order to complete the key stage in two years, it is believed that the combination of improved literacy and numeracy skills, to boost access for all in cross-curricular subjects, and a distillation of the content-rich key stage three into key themes, are needed. It is felt that there is a lot of repetition during this time of a pupil’s school career and this leads to disengagement. The competencies identified should underpin the curriculum content; these competencies should be applicable in all areas. Too often, skills are not transferred from one curriculum area. As a starting point, we are looking at the Opening Minds framework. We do, however, expect to customise it to suit the needs and demands of our pupils.

The curriculum that has been approved (by governors) is a move towards more theme-based learning for the arts, humanities and religious education for all groups. Super Learning Days (a working title) are to be held twice a term, where the pupils’ work upon a theme that has curriculum input from all groups, with a measurable end point. Designated departments will collaborate to devise these Super Learning Days, but all departments work towards the end point. ICT will be delivered within all subject areas, making the software skills of our student more relevant to the learning that is taking place

Pupils are helping us to drive this forward. Questionnaires, interviews and their input in designing the new curriculum are being carried out this term. When the curriculum becomes a collaborative one, engagement will follow.

• Over 70% of students would like to be consulted about what they study.
• 72% of students felt responsible for their own learning.

Refer back to my comments about lack of ownership and power and consider why students are disengaged. They do feel responsible for their learning at a time when they are striving for greater autonomy and independence. Yet we expect them to sit down and digest what we are prescribed to deliver. We will have to bring parents on board for the new year 7 cohort. Inviting them in one day to see their children learning is a way forward.

The Curriculum 2007 Hub has a lot of work to complete, and the timetable is just the start. Assessment for Learning, which is embedded within the school, will be a mechanism to ensure engagement and focused learners. Learning to Learn is something we need to incorporate, so we are drafting in an expert to the hub for a short period of time. My colleagues and I do not have all of the answers but we are committed, and a significant number of staff are also on board.

We believe that the lessons we have learnt are grounded in practice, through the evolution of the deep learning project. This experience has provided us with a framework to structure future curriculum reform at our school. The journey has been as important as the destination, engaging students in co-construction; enabling creativity to flourish (for staff and students); reculturing staff perceptions; and creating a distributive school improvement vehicle (learning hubs) are all perhaps more important than the final product. We urgently need a curriculum that adequately meets the needs and engages the 21st century learner.

To improve engagement, we have found that project-based learning, with fewer members of staff, giving the pupils greater input into what they study, has been found to be a way to tackle boredom and loss of motivation. This opinion is based on practice informing our strategic intent.

I’d like to thank the students and staff who have contributed to this work and, in particular, Mr E. Fitzpatrick for his advice and guidance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ms Jo Gough is Assistant Head of Science at Priory Sports and Technology College. Jo is the leader of the Curriculum Learning Hub team and has been teaching for almost 15 years in a variety of secondary schools. The core purpose of the Curriculum Learning Hub team is to develop a more engaging curriculum for key stage three students.

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