Month: May 2011

We all know that smaller classes, uniforms and primary homework are ways of boosting schools’ performance. Or are they? Not according to a recent report from the Sutton Trust. In fact, reducing class sizes, setting homework during primary school, and introducing school uniforms are among the least effective ways of improving school results.

Looking at class sizes they found that benefits, “are not particularly large or clear, until class size is reduced to under 20 or even below 15”.

Another myth seems to be that hiring more classroom assistants is effective. This is at odds with what most teachers think as 44% said that hiring more teaching assistants was one of their top three priorities. The report says that hiring more teaching assistants  is associated with “very small or no effects on attainment”.

Significant gains in attainment meanwhile come from proven classroom approaches – providing effective feedback on pupil’s performance, encouraging students to think about their own learning strategies, and getting pupils to learn from each other. Implemented correctly, these approaches can increase pupils’ performance by an extra eight or nine months in a school year for a very low cost, according to the guide.

Key findings include:

On effective feedback – “One study even estimates that the impact of rapid feedback on learning is 124 times more cost effective that reducing class sizes.”

On peer tutoring – “Benefits are apparent for both tutor and tutee, though the approach should be used to supplement or enhance normal teaching, rather than replace it.”

On meta-cognitive approaches – “Studies report substantial gains equivalent to moving a class from 50th place in a league table of 100 schools to about 25th.”

On homework – “It is more valuable at secondary school level and much less effective for children of primary school age.”

On teaching assistants – “Most studies have consistently found very small or no effects on attainment.”

On school uniforms – “No robust evidence that introducing a school uniform will improve academic performance.”

On reducing class sizes – “Overall the benefits are not particularly large or clear, until class size is reduced to under 20 or even below 15.”

On one-to-one tuition – “Pupils might improve by about 4 or 5 months during the programme, but costs are high as the support is intensive.”

On ability grouping – “There may be some benefits for higher attaining pupils, but these are largely outweighed by the negative effects on attitudes for middle and lower performing learners.”

The full report can be found at:

The Sutton Trust

 

Should maths lessons be quiet is clearly a tricky one to answer. There should certainly be allowances made for children to discuss the work they are doing, explore ideas, work in small groups on a tricky investigation, but there is a big difference between quietly discussing options and shouting at each other. There are ceertainly times when everyone should be quietly concentrating.

The most recent research also suggests that the acoustics of the room can make it more difficult for children to learn. Researchers have found that 14-16 year olds working in a noisy environment performed at a similar level as 11-13 year olds working in a quiet classroom.

Dr Daniel Connolly of the Institute of Education said the study shows that poor noise levels are not good for learning.

“In a lot of tasks, higher noise levels take the older age group back to the same level as the younger age group. There will always be a certain amount of noise in a school, but if you put students in an acoustically poor room it will amplify that,” he said.

When you went to your child’s classroom was it noisy, even with nobody talking? I remember working in one classroom where the chairs made a horrendous scraping noise every time someone moved. It certainly was disturbing and onlty solved with fitting carpets. Noise from outside can also be disturbing – with some classrooms right next to the school playing fields, or schools under the Heathrow flightpath!

See Independent for more.