Achievement and Under achievement:
A sorry tail?
Professor Martyn Rouse
[email protected]
The long tail of underachievement:
Some key questions
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Why is there concern about underachievement?
Who underachieves or gets excluded?
Why does it happen?
What are the consequences?
Why focus on achievement AND inclusion?
What is being done to close the achievement
gap and to increase participation?
Why achievement and inclusion? The
broader context
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International comparisons of participation and
achievement for different groups of children
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PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)
TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)
PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study)
Why achievement and inclusion? The
broader context
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The role of schooling in achieving public and private
human, economic and social development goals:
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Social cohesion and inclusion
Security and safety
Prosperity
Subjective well-being
In the context of:
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International competitiveness
Globalisation and migration
New patterns of employment
Why achievement and inclusion?
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Many countries have groups of children who are
excluded and/or underachieve
This leads to long term economic and social
consequences for all of us
The economic and social returns from education are
complex….but:
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There are clear links between poor educational outcomes,
poverty and additional support needs
Tackling underachievement and exclusion is the right thing to do,
it makes sound economic and social sense
This is an international movement
Who underachieves or is not included?
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In UK it’s associated with ASN/SEN (especially
behaviour), class, poverty, ethnicity, language, gender,
mobility and ‘looked after children’
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See:
 ‘More choices,more chances’
 Quality and Equity of Schooling in Scotland (OECD 2007)
 Others international studies (PISA, PIRLS)
 UNICEF study, Children’s well-being in rich countries.
Where do we stand?
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The highest achieving pupils in the UK compare with the
best in the world
Scotland does better than England ….BUT
The UK has one of the longest tails of underachievement
in the developed world
Scotland has high levels of disengagement from
education post 15
The UK is at the bottom of international comparisons of
‘children’s well-being’
How serious is underachievement?
Gap between average pupils and low
achievers S4: trend over ten years
But how do we compare?
Mean student achievement in best and
worst classrooms across countries
What are the causes?
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An emphasis on sorting, sifting and predicting
School structures
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Streaming, banding and setting
Inequalities within and between schools
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Who gets the ‘best’ teachers?
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Who gets the ‘best’ students?
High poverty students/ low achieving pupils are more
likely to get less experienced/less well qualified teachers
Resource inequality leads to an ‘opportunity gap’
Causes: continued
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Competing policy initiatives
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School cultures and reward systems
High and low status work
Attitudes, beliefs and stigma
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How are schools judged?
Whose achievement is valued?
How is achievement assessed, recorded and reported?
What kinds of achievement are valued?
“Us and them” ……..worthy and unworthy children
But where do these notions come from?
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Embedded beliefs about social class?
Reinforced by the media?
The need to classify, categorise and pathologise?
Beliefs about human differences?
The real culprit?
0.0045
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Height of Curve
0.003
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0.0015
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200
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SAT Scores
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Some consequences of ‘bell curve thinking’
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Focus on the measurable
Reification
Unwarranted status because of its elegant mathematics
Makes it difficult to demonstrate learning
Comparisons with inappropriate populations
Leads to beliefs about ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ people
Deterministic thinking about learning
Limits expectations
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Associated with the notion of prediction and POTENTIAL
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Consequences: continued
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Intergenerational low aspirations
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The achievement gap leads to an educational debt
across generations for certain groups
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When translated into school level expectations
Think of the ways in which the annual trade gap leads to the
national debt across the years
Used to justify streaming, tracking, ‘leveling’ and
FAILURE
Leads to negative social, emotional and behavioural
outcomes
Disciplinary climate: gap between best and worst
mathematics classrooms
Why confusion about assessment?
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Lack of clarity about the purposes and nature (especially
ASN)
Beliefs about the predictive power of testing
No shared meanings for concepts of…….ability, aptitude,
attainment, achievement, standards, and potential
Lack of understanding about the differences between
formative, summative and ipsative assessment
AND between norm-referenced and criterion referenced
assessment
When the rules change….
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
It’s not all bad news: what’s been achieved with
achievement and inclusion?
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Real progress in some schools, BUT problems remain
Inclusion does NOT necessarily have a negative impact
on the achievement of others
Some schools are inclusive AND high achieving
Getting it right for children who find learning difficult,
brings benefits for all
Schools which add the greatest ’value’ often serve the
most disadvantaged communities
What are they doing?
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Recruiting and retaining good teachers
Reviewing and clarifying roles
Investing in support for teachers as well as students
Believing that all children can learn
Defining achievement broadly
Recognising that learning takes place outside school
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Connecting with the community
Getting involved in collaborative research
Providing meaningful alternatives
Using the curriculum flexibly to keep pupils connected
What are they doing?
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Connecting pupils and families to the school
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Creative arts
Extra curricular activities
Peer tutoring
Homework clubs
Learning mentors
Community outreach
Quality vocational education
Raising aspirations and expectations
Redefining additional support…the current definition:
‘provision which is additional to, or otherwise
different from, the educational provision made
generally for children……’
Redefining additional support
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Enhancing what is ‘generally available’ by using the
principles of universal design
Dealing with difference from the outset
Recognising that inclusion is not a denial of difference
Not waiting for ‘failure’ before intervening
Developing inclusive pedagogy and systems of
assessment that recognise progress
Focusing on learning, teaching and participation
Developing skills for working with other adults
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Classroom assistants
Voluntary sector
Parents
A framework for participation
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Participation and access (being there)
Participation and diversity (recognition and
acceptance)
Participation and collaboration (learning and
working together)
Participation and achievement (recognising and
celebrating progress)
Adapted from: Black-Hawkins, K., Florian, L. & Rouse,M. (2007)
Achievement and Inclusion in Schools. London: Routledge
So…where do we go from here?