Faculty of Development & Society - Affirming Achievement 1 Multiverse Project Analysis of High Attaining Black Students: Factors and Conditions that Affect

Faculty of Development & Society - Affirming Achievement

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Multiverse ProjectAnalysis of High Attaining Black Students: Factors and Conditions that Affect their Achievement Levels

Presented by Dr Carol TomlinBlack and Minority Ethnic Governors Network: Promoting Good GovernanceMarch 2007


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2. Research Objectives To highlight the factors and conditions that

lead to high attaining Black pupils. To explore strategies employed by

exemplar schools that lead to high attaining Black pupils.

To examine appropriate programmes such as Gifted and Talented and affects they may have on high attaining pupils.


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The Fieldwork The interviews and focus groups for

the fieldwork took place in the four participating schools, two each in Birmingham and London.

The primary and secondary schools in Birmingham are referred to as Oak Primary and Birch Secondary and the two in London as Fig Primary and Elm Secondary.


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3. Key Findings

3.2 Strong Leadership Each school had a strong head

teacher, exhibiting well-developed leadership style.

Heads were involved in activities in the communities that serve the schools and developed good partnerships with parents.


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3.3 Teacher Expectations and Pupil Relationships

Teachers had high expectations of pupils and this was communicated to the children. This affected children’s responses to behaviour and to learning activities.

On the whole the children experienced good relationships with teachers and there was a mutually respectful relationship between them.


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3.6 Pupils’ Experience and Attitude towards School

On the whole pupils had positive attitude towards their respective schools. Generally, pupils enjoyed school life and felt many teachers worked hard to ensure they maximized their potential. They spoke highly of their schooling and believed they were well-respected by teachers.


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A couple of pupils commented on their dislike of teachers who singled them out because they do not understand the work or who feel that there authority is challenged in some way.


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3.8 Parental Partnership and Involvement

The researchers did not interview many parents due to limitations of the research.

A recurring theme from both pupils and educators was the extremely high level of parental involvement.


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One head teacher noted the ‘respect black families have for education.’ Pupils in both primary and secondary schools reported that parents, particularly mothers strongly supported their education in practical ways.


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In the primary schools parents participated in several curricular and extra-curricular activities.

All the schools had an open door policy.

This was more evident in the primary schools, but for obvious reasons more difficult to operate in the secondary ones.


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3.9 Awareness of Issues of Black

Children

All the heads demonstrated an impressive theoretical and practical understanding of a range of socio-economic issues and challenges Black children experience.

They adhered to equality and inclusive policies reflected in their practices.


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3.10 Specific Strategies to Raise Levels of Achievement In Fig Primary, the head teacher adopted a

pro-active approach to raising the levels of achievement of Black pupils.

Teachers identify and track all pupils’ progress in order to raise achievement levels.

Significantly, teachers are required to specifically identify Black children. Interestingly, the Black children in Fig Primary have consistently obtained high SATs scores.


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The Head of Fig School has been proactive with involving parents and has communicated to parents the high expectations that the school has of their children.

Birch Secondary, has implemented a special programme for its Black children, (referred to in this project as High Hopes). High Hopes is spearheaded by a Black teacher in response to the view that a lot of African Caribbean pupils do not always have high aspirations.


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In Elm School the Head teacher. The School is involved in a pilot behaviour

policy termed ‘restorative justice.’ Restorative justice is based on the principle of enabling people to resolves disputes and therefore gives pupils a voice.

It is used as a model for dealing with pupils who experience ‘difficulties’ instead of implementing the more traditional exclusion policy.


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Citizenship involvement was considered to be important but varied from school to school. In the secondary school pupils were engaged in community projects which had a direct bearing on their daily lives.


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3.11 Gifted and Talented Programmes

In the case study schools, Gifted and Talented programmes were not solely based on pupils’ academic potential. The programmes catered for the varying academic, social and emotional needs of children.

Gifted and Talented coordinators had a holistic approach to working with the high attaining pupils and all pupils.


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3.10 SATs Attainment and Predicted GCSE Grades

The levels of attainment among Black pupils in both primary and secondary schools under study are above the national average.

Gender has been a significant factor in reports of achievement of African Caribbean pupils we analysed the data for any gender discrepancies.


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SATs

In general, pupils work between levels 2-5 in SATs and are expected to achieve at least level 4, as level 4 represents the nationally expected standards for 11-year-olds.


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Attainment Levels in SATs For the primary data most of the pupils

achieved level 5 in Maths, Science and English which is above the expected attainment level.

At Oak Primary, the overall percentage of children obtaining level 5 was 78% with two pupils (a boy and girl) obtaining level 4 in Maths and two boys achieving level 4 in English. All pupils achieved level 5 in Science.

At Fig Primary School 100% of the children achieved level 5 in English, Maths and Science.


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Secondary - Predicted Grades In the Secondary sample, 100% of the pupils

are expected to obtain 5 or more A* to C at GCSE. At Elm Secondary 83% (5 out of 6 pupils) are expected to obtain 10 or more GCSEs and at Birch 33% (2 out of 6 students) are expected to gain 10 GCSEs.

Insignificant quantifiable gender differences in the attainment levels of pupils in both the primary and secondary data. But there were differences in attainment between schools.


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4. Conclusion A number of factors and conditions

combined resulted in high achievement among many Black children in the participating schools.

Strong leadership was key, high teacher expectations, good teacher-pupil relationships, good partnership with parents and a high level of parental involvement, creative approaches to the curriculum and extra-curricular activities.


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Also, head teachers’ awareness and understanding of the experiences of Black children together with the attitudes to schooling of the pupils themselves are all contributory factors.

Pupils were highly motivated. Both educators and parents have

played a critical role in developing the pupils’ self-efficacy.


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6. Guidelines and Recommendations

Head teacher should be employed in inner city or urban schools, who have a proven track record of raising achievement levels of failing BME groups and who possess significant knowledge and vast awareness of experiences of BME pupils.

Teachers should have significant experiences of working with BME pupils.


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Educators should consider implementing specific self-confidence building programmes for Black pupils.

Schools should closely monitor achievement levels of Black pupils and adopt a more detailed an analytical approach to identifying and tracking pupil progress according to their ethnic grouping.

Documents

Faculty of Development & Society - Affirming Achievement 1 Multiverse Project Analysis of High Attaining Black Students: Factors and Conditions that Affect