Tag Archives: closing the gap

Towards Social Justice

Featured

Posted on by
4

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

Our education system is perfectly designed to secure and maintain the conditions that accumulate disadvantage over time. A system so ingrained and accepted that we unwittingly perpetuate it and see the results as inevitable. Against the backdrop of the fracturing social contract, the aftermath of the pandemic and in darkening times, the cogs of the system continue unabated, galvanised and renewed to further widen gaps and disenfranchise an ever-larger number of children.

“To not feel belonging is to experience the precarious and insecure sense of an outsider.” (Owen Eastwood, 2021)

The system is strengthening, forging greater division in society precisely at a time when individual agency and mobility is decreasing. A system that has powerful ways of telling children that they do not belong, playing out asymmetrically to make life precarious and insecure for far too many. A national crisis rages, children are becoming more invisible, opting out of education and they are being pushed to the edges. Those who most need school are not there, absent and missing from the very place that could offer social justice and opportunity.

We need to create a system that is for all children, a system of opportunity that is on their side, a place to belong, where equity gives them what they need. A system where we go beyond just caring about closing gaps. Recognising that the system and our accepted norms often exclude children whose experience of multi micro-exclusions, accumulate disadvantage and erode self-agency.

Using our architecture to tilt the system towards social justice

What if we have more power in this system than we think, than we have come to accept? What if we were to use the architecture of our system, the maturation of groups of schools connected within Trusts to tilt the system, to re-align and re-engineer the system? Taking braver, more courageous decisions that unswervingly seek social justice and challenge the status quo. We choose to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard; a loonshot.

“Never tell me the odds.” (Han Solo)

What if Trusts, engage in deep(er) connection and collaboration, offering the security and permission to go after something that really matters? Trusts working together for all children transforming and re-aligning the system to secure greater social justice for disadvantaged learners.

It is not that we don’t care, it is that we do not care enough

… because if we did we would seek to influence, adapt, re-orientate the very system that we are part of, that we are responsible for; understanding the we are the system. What we presently do as educationalists is not working, gaps are growing, we are getting no closer to social justice.

Ubuntu – a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity: I am what I am because of who we all are

We need greater expressions of compassion and humanity to overcome the forces in our society and schools that insidiously widen gaps. We need to be more ferocious, more tenacious in creating the conditions that enable our disadvantaged learners to flourish. This requires educators to be more honest, to ask uncomfortable questions and make braver decisions to enact greater equity: a deeper expression of care.

Social justice as the aim, social mobility as an outcome.

“Social mobility” is about escaping disadvantage, whereas social justice is about eradicating that disadvantage in the first place. Education as a tool for social justice ought to be the goal of any civic-minded (society) university, and indeed our collective goal as a sector for our widening participation efforts to be capable of actually producing meaningful change.” (Claire Sosienski Smith)

Seeking social justice and how our system increases participation, connection, opportunity and experience is better placed than initiatives focused on mobility, which seek to enable relatively few individuals to escape the system, to defy the odds. We need a bottom-up investment in all individuals; we need to change the rules of the game with social justice as the goal and social mobility as an outcome.

Social justice: Access, Equity, Diversity, Participation, Human Rights

Seeking social justice requires us to work in the system at an individual-level to integrate and engineer connection between all attainment bands and groups, and through this deliberate act of inclusion, create supported opportunity, participation and experiences that close gaps.  Reaching in and applying equity to lift lives; counterintuitively, one by one. A redistribution of esteem to increase the number of those that see they are able to live lives of decency and dignity.

“…we need a redistribution of esteem… to live lives of decency and dignity, winning social esteem. …(to) travel the road to 2045 with purpose, dignity and accomplishment.” (Peter Hennessy)

We need educators and leaders to act within the system, as agents of change, tilting our system to achieve greater social justice. Leadership from the inside to enact the equity required to create paths that have heart and secure social justice; heroes wanted.

“Look at every path closely. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, the question: does this path have a HEART?” (Carlos Castenada)

Equity over Equality | giving what individuals actually need

We are baffled and compelled by equality, but equality is a brilliant way to maintain our perfect system. Equity in contrast is not offering the same to all, but securing what individuals actually need. This means that we need to be more comfortable with doing different, doing more and meeting the ‘actual’ needs of individuals so we give ourselves a chance at closing gaps and match fixing the system. Turning, where we can the system on itself.

The system is so ingrained, accepted and normalised that we are often blind to the influence of the system, and complicit in it. We do have a choice and the agency to actively disrupt the system, to apply equity and redirect the power of the system to level the playing field.

The multiplying effect of small acts | the power of the crowd

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” (Margret Mead)

The power of the crowds and the accumulation of small acts, of heroes who are alive to the system, call it out and tilt it with small and large actions towards those that need it most. Seeking to privilege disadvantaged learners in all that we do, redesigning our system for social justice.

“It is a matter of shared purpose and sustained application.”(Peter Hennessy)

Every child needs at least one person who believes in them | advantaging the disadvantaged

We need a system where all children have someone who believes in them. To grow up advantaged is to have adults who deeply believe in you, hold you to high expectations, encouraging (demanding) participation in supported opportunities over time. A childhood that encourages risk taking, whilst holding a safety net and offering commentary, narrating the journey through life, reaffirming and strengthening a child’s internal locus of control incrementally, day by day.

And in this we see what must be done, to re-design the system to enable disadvantaged to participate, to have supported opportunity and wider social connectivity, with a back stop of someone who believes in them, who creates a safety net and support them as they interpret life. Get up, go again, you have agency, you are always invited to dance.

Help me, Obi Wan, you’re my only hope

Educationalists need to work together to propagate a movement that re-engineers and re-aligns our system, increasing our impact on the everyday experience of every child, bottom up; great schools in strong Trusts, meeting need. So that together we realise and enhance a collective Trust Dividend that offers hope and achieves greater social justice for all children and particularly those presently or previously experiencing disadvantage.

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.” (Howard Zinn)

We need to seek greater collective endeavour that goes upstream in search of social justice for the many, demonstrating through our actions our deeply held desire to do more than just care, to be braver and to join in a quest that accumulates advantage. A quest that enacts equity through education to lift up disadvantaged children and make a difference, one life at a time, knowing that this collective sector wide effort might just tilt the system to something that befits our personal values and the collective desires for our sector.

What if we decided to seek greater social justice and re-engineer our system to…  

  • Privilege disadvantage everywhere and in everything? Prioritising disadvantage learners in all decision making, in provision, in opportunity, a culture of ambition for all children, going beyond just caring. A system, Trusts and schools that firmly privilege disadvantage in all that they do, such that it becomes the norm; a system perfectly designed to close gaps.
  • Measure what we really care about, what really matters? Securing the attainment and attendance of disadvantaged learners. Measure it, target it, expect it, publish it, reward it, make it the accepted and expected currency of our sector. Securing high attainment because grades really matter and attendance because there is no point in any other actions if they are not there; disadvantage even over, attendance first.
  • Apply Equity through education? Shaking the shackles of equality to give children what they specifically need. Doing differently by individuals, securing this as the normal; using the advantaged upbringing as a measure for the amount of equity required to tilt the system.
  • Seek deep and sustained participation for all children? Measure it, prioritise it, demand it and invest in it. Using the sharp elbows that create the supported opportunity for advantaged children and over-match for disadvantaged learners. Beyond enrichment, this is about entitlement for those who presently feel the opposite of entitled.
  • Mix all attainment bands and create a strong system of inclusion for all children? Actively addressing the school within a school phenomenon, that creates alternate realities and routes. Individuals measure status and standards against those that we are closest to. We must create the connections and influences that close gaps.
  • Deeply understand individual lives?  Working to understand each child so that they connect, belong, participate, feel success, thrive. Every child needs to have at least one adult who believes in them. Magic happens when all colleagues believe in all children.
  • Seek bottom-up mobilisation, a movement? Focus at the level of individual and mobilise the many in this shared endeavour to lift lives, one by one. Creating the conditions for a movement to lift up a generation. A counterintuitive focus on individuals and schools, in Trusts, to re-engineer our system toward social justice, seeking irreversible change in our society.

To do so is to be a bit more pirate and seek good trouble, rather than conform to the system and remain in the Navy. If not now, when, if not you, who?

“I’d rather be a pirate than join the Navy.” (Steve Jobs)

Dan Nicholls | October 2023

The disconnection of disadvantage | reconnecting the disconnected

Posted on by
4

Please hold while we try to connect you, your life is important to us

dis: the lack of, not…

We live in a time when increasing numbers of children are becoming disconnected from their world. Too often, circumstances and events act to disconnect disadvantaged learners, who become increasingly disillusioned and disenfranchised from society and school; pushed to the fringes. As children become disconnected their status, sense of belonging and self-esteem diminishes, encouraging retreat.

We live in a time of increased disconnection and social inequality, that is tipping life and opportunity away from increasing numbers of children who are presently disadvantaged. Disconnection is an ever-present thread, a process, through life, accentuated by key events that chip away at a child’s belief in what is possible. This is an on-going and sometimes catastrophic erosion of agency over time that encourages children to step back and not forward into opportunity.

 “Disconnection is a fearsome state for a social animal to find itself in. It is a warning that its life is failing and its world has become hostile: where there’s no connection, there is no protection.” (Will Storr)

Looking through the lens of disadvantage we can see the circumstances and experiences that create disconnection and accentuate disadvantage. Almost none of it is purposeful, but we are inconveniently complicit through our actions and collude with practices that disconnect. The failure of a child to connect positively time after time, increases the likelihood of disconnection that drains the joy, the ambition and colour from life, profoundly harming well-being. Once disconnection leads to disillusionment, children find themselves on the outside, where return is possible, but rare. The powers of education are weak at this distance, too often any existing connection irretrievably snaps.

“…loneliness can quite literally make us sick? Human beings crave togetherness and interaction. Our spirits yearn for connection just as our bodies hunger for food.” (Rutger Bregman)

We can counteract and remove these “forces of disconnection” and create better climates and cultures that enable children to grow, to belong and to have more agency. Only then will children feel like the hero in their story through life. Heroes that need equity for their quest, to be privileged, to not be let off and to be held by high expectations worthy of hero-status. We do, however, need to meet them there and up the bandwidth of connection to reach out and say you belong here.

The pandemic is the greatest “disconnection event” of our time and it has entrenched and exposed a world that is already riddled with disconnection. A world where connection systematically weakens over time for increasing numbers and gaps become chasms between those that have and those that have not. The following explores just a few examples of disconnection.

Alternate realities | schools hidden within schools

Alternate reality: a self-contained separate world, coexisting within the real world.

Schools are navigated entirely differently by each child. We may like to generalise provision, but children are the only real experts of their experience. The reality for too many is that they attend a school within a school, disconnected and parallel to the best provision. These alternate realities hinge on a range of factors: levels of attainment, timetable, staffing, setting, banding, reputation, pathways, peers, groupings, pre-conceived ideas, expectations. Typically, high attaining children experience a privileged route, whilst lower attaining children endure a less privileged route; different reality, same school.

“The last thing a fish would ever notice would be water.” (Ralph Linton)

The decisions we make about how we organise provision, have consequences for learners, that create or deny connection, systematically over time. We have come to accept the alternate realities, where those presently disadvantaged are disproportionately represented in the less connected, lower performing, under ambitious, alternate reality. They do not often feel the privilege of the high attaining reality.

“What provokes our outrage depends on what surrounds us – on what we consider normal.” (Cass Sunstein)

Lost in Transition | mind the gap

Children navigate many transitions as they move through their education. Advantaged children leap confidently across these transitions, whilst disadvantaged gingerly and uncertainly step across; this is not for me. Whether it is the summer break (any break), moving schools, moving years, options or pathway choices, advantaged families step forward, stage manage, resource and guide readiness and decision making. At the same time disadvantaged learners get lost in transitions and lose connection, disconnected from seizing opportunities. In these transitions they are reminded that this is a world that happens to them, they step back, not forward and the gap widens, on repeat. We need to stage manage and connect children so they find (not lose) themselves in transition.

We assume too much | pedagogy and teacher that connects children to what is possible

Classrooms should build connection, not just between peers or with adults, but also with the joy of learning and the richness of subject. A connection that enables children to feel clever, to build knowledge and understanding that opens their eyes and inspires them to feel enfranchised and empowered; connecting and giving them access to the world.

Too often we make assumptions that erode connectivity and deny access, particularly for disadvantaged learners. Each time we assume knowledge, cultural capital, language, vocabulary, ability to attend to verbal and written instruction, resilience, persistence in seeking to understand… we limit accessibility and the ability to connect. Assuming too much over time, disenfranchises learners; there is a limit to how often a child will go back and try to connect.

“Making good use of school time is the single most egalitarian function that schools perform, because for disadvantaged children, school time is the only academic learning time, whereas advantaged students can learn a lot outside of school.” (Hirsch)

Enhancing connection in classrooms:

  • Invest deliberately in a Reading Strategy; perhaps the most important enabler for learning, connecting to the best that has been written. Literally connecting a child, forever, to learning and the world around them; fundamentally enhancing quality of life.
  • Invest in vocabulary, the keys to language, to comprehension, discussion, building fluency and falling in love with words.
  • Invest in oracy; supporting children to find their voice to articulate, apply and explore their understanding out loud, connect to others and have a voice that is heard.
  • Tell stories that bounce up and down through the curriculum, reducing assumptions, inspiring, connecting knowledge and understanding in rich retrieval spaces.
  • Weave schema nets: really understand the architecture and structure of subject. It is this spine, these key organising concepts that create the net or holding baskets for future learning. 
  • Keep the curriculum tight, spiralling and bouncing not far from the core spine of the subject. Too much unconnected breadth or arbitrary content disconnects disadvantaged learners; who are much more likely to blame themselves than the quality of teaching.

“The curriculum should whisper to our children, you belong. You did not come from nowhere. All this came before you, and one day you too might add to it.” (Ben Newmark)

Connection lost | attendance first

Looking for the disconnected? they aren’t in. Everyday too many children are physically disconnected from school. If we do not consider attendance first and reach out to reconnect we reinforce disconnection. In our endemic world the forces disconnecting children from their education are strong. There is a growing sense of wider disconnection that is shifting attitudes and weakening the contract held between families and schools. Children need to feel like they belong, that they can succeed, that it is worth attending and that we deeply care if they are in. Belonging is rarely achieved through compulsion or penalty.

Small moments of prestige | interactions can have serious repercussions for the future

“Anything you do could have serious repercussions on future events. Do you understand?” (Doc Brown, BTTF)

Tread carefully, you know not where your influence will lead. Each interaction or experience can trigger a child to connect or disconnect to a new self-image a new sense of whether this is for them; whether they step forward and persist or step back and dissociate. Each positive connection fills a child’s “confidence locker” stacking evidence that they can do.

“An ignition story … when a young person falls helplessly in love with their future passion … a tiny, world shifting thought lighting up your unconscious mind: I could be them” (Dan Coyle)

Small moments of prestige, give status. We all need to feel clever, to achieve something, to be acknowledged, to be truly listened to, to be invested in, to see yourself in the learning, to build belonging and status over time. Every interaction, word, comment, response, expectation, experience builds or breaks a child’s sense of what is possible (often stickily into adulthood). It is too easy for individuals to grow disconnected and to feel the insecure sense of being an outsider.

“To feel a sense of belonging is to feel accepted, to feel seen, to feel included.. to not feel belonging is to experience the precarious and insecure sense of an outsider“ (Owen Eastwood)

Our language and expectations are an expression of our attitudes towards others. Deficit language erodes connection, we need to invest in specific language, in high standards and expectations; if we let you off we let you down. High expectations are an expression care, that connect and include individuals. To grow up advantaged is to be shaped by high expectations.

“My expectations about you define my attitude towards you.” (Rutger Bregman)

“some of us may need to start with bubbles of safety.. when we belong and where we are encouraged or at least allowed to make a contribution, the magic happens.” (Jon Alexander)

Dan Nicholls | March 2023

Disadvantaged children | think low attainment not low ability

Posted on by
16

ATT00031

“What if… we view disadvantaged children as low attaining and not as low ability, instil a deep and widely held belief in what is possible and then set eye-watering targets that underline our ambition to overcome the inertia of context.”

It is probably true that… Primary and Secondary schools need to do more to close the gap in attainment between disadvantaged and advantaged children; perhaps seeing it more as low attainment and not low ability or delayed progress and not that there is a limit to a child’s potential. We know that gaps appear early (ages 0-4) and widen through a child’s education. All of which has a deep impact on the child’s life chance and success that ultimately leads to generational cycles of poverty and disadvantage.

Which begs the question… what does it take to close these gaps and disrupt the loop of unequal opportunity and outcomes?

believe-in-kids

What if… education reinforces early advantage and accumulated advantage for advantaged students and inadvertently creates conditions where early attainment gaps widen?… do we disadvantage the disadvantaged?

Malcolm Gladwell identifies in Outliers that we often perpetuate early advantage. He exemplifies through the Canadian Ice Hockey League where those children selected at 4 and 5 years old, are generally the oldest and largest children; having their birthdays in Jan, Feb and March. These children enter the hockey Academies, experience great coaching, many hours of practise (largely deliberate in nature) and of course they thrive, out-strip their slightly younger peers and go on to be professionals. Not because they are more gifted or talented than those children born later in the year, but because they were a quarter to fifth older and larger than their peers when selected…what happened next just served to prove the selectors and scouts right.

“Autumn born students showed higher attainment and made more academic progress over KS3.” (DfE, 2012)

What if… as educators and teachers we are complicit in the widening of gaps and perpetuating the early advantage of students from advantaged backgrounds?

“Within the complex landscape of differential attainment, socio- economic disadvantage appears to be the most consistent predictor of attainment, particularly for children and young people from white ethnic groups.” (Ofsted)

What if… we recognise that low attaining disadvantaged children on entry to Primary and Secondary school are actually low attaining and not low ability. What if we are actually see “delayed progress” and not fixed ability or limit our belief in what disadvantaged children can achieve.

What if… there is a wide-held and embedded belief in the ability of all disadvantaged to achieve and attain – life enhancing qualifications and skills that will break the generational cycle of poverty? What if… we did not assume that this belief exists? The type of belief that enables and levers success for disadvantaged students needs to be to depth and has to live and breath in the organisation – it has to be felt and ubiquitous in all that happens.

What if… we build in greater ambition for disadvantaged students? At the start of secondary why do we not set low attaining disadvantaged children a full level of progress each year?

What if… we understand that this higher ambition and action seeks to close early gaps in literacy and numeracy for example – because these gaps disenfranchise children from their education and maintain the loop of poor outcomes, with each generation.

What if… we understood that disadvantaged students are prone to “self de-selection”. They are more likely to see an opportunity, chance or activity as not for them and de-select themselves. What if we had a policy of “meeting them there” – to ensure that disadvantaged children attend extra-curricular events and attend trips etc. … and to deliberately plan lift the cultural capital for each child.

What if… we understand that disadvantaged students are more likely to have an external locus of control and more likely to assume that their experiences and opportunities in life are determined by others and that they are not in control of their own destiny (internal locus of control). All of which links to the self-esteem and self-confidence that is more prevalent in advantaged households, where there is an assumed progression and a greater internal locus that expects individuals to take control of their future; making things happen.

What if… we understood that not all disadvantaged students are disadvantaged and that there are many advantaged students who are disadvantaged? Do we use our own understanding and soft intelligence to identify our actual disadvantaged cohort?

What if… we sense-checked our pupil premium spending to ensure that the strategies we are using are not in fact enabling advantaged students to flourish further,(obviously no bad thing) but that they targeted at enabling disadvantaged to close the gap and achieve. This can only be born out of a deep understanding of what being disadvantaged really means.

What if… we realise that pupils premium spending should be proportionate to the numbers of disadvantaged and that only by measuring impact can we truly understand what and how we close the attainment gaps?

What if… we gained a deeper understanding of what it means to be disadvantaged – not because we intend to mis-understand the complexity of socio-economic disadvantage by creating unhelpful generalisations, but so we can find a language, approaches, strategies and teaching that unlocks and reverses the disadvantaged inertia that slows/delays progress.

Key factors can include: worklessness, low parental education, lower ambition, less well informed choices, poor home study routines, poor diet, overcrowding, alcoholism, violence, chaotic homes, lower access to books, tables, further resources, reduced cultural capital, visits, newspapers, discussion, debate… (obviously these are generalisations – there are many disadvantaged backgrounds that support and provide conditions for children to thrive and achieve beyond that achieved in advantaged households.)

“Students’ academic attainment and progress are strongly influenced by the education level of their parents. Influence of Fathers’ qualification levels only half as strong as mothers. Positive parenting experiences, especially the early years Home Learning Environment (HLE) helps to promote better longer term outcomes.” (DfE, 2012)

By understanding context we can inform the quality of provision that enables all children to exploit their one chance.

Slide08

What if… we understood that gaps in attainment happen early ages 0-4 and that these gaps typically widen through Primary and Secondary education. “Success is what sociologist would call accumulative advantage.” (Gladwell, 2008)

“Overall, attainment gaps are present from the early stages of education and progressively worsen during transition and through each phase.” (Ofsted)

What if… we understood that these gaps widen because of the Matthew Effect: “it is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success.” (Gladwell, 2008)

Differences in academic attainment and social-behavioural development related to background emerged early (at age 3) and remained fairly stable to age 14. (DfE, 2012)

What if…  the quality of Nursery education is a key determining factor. It is not uncommon for gaps to be significant at Reception and that this often directly relates to whether the child has attended Nursery and then whether this is of good quality.

What if… we understood that the summer holiday break (in this instance in the US) has a greater impact on disadvantaged children than advantaged children exemplify the home-advantage of advantaged children…

“The wealthiest kids come back in September and their reading scores have jumped more than 15 points. The poorest kids come back from their holidays and their reading scores have dropped almost four points. Poor kids may out-learn rich kids during the school year. But during the summer, they fall far behind.” … “Virtually all of the advantage that wealthy students have over poor students is the result of differences in the way that privileged kids learn while they are not in school.” (Gladwell, Outliers, 2008)

What if… we took seriously our collective system leadership responsibility for supporting families and by extension all children to make strong progress between 0 and 4. Fully exploiting the potential offered by all-through Academies. This connects the dots and works to remove/improve damaging transitions.

What if… all leaders and teachers are leaders of learning? And that this is never divorced from an on-going and deep dialogue about how we best-teach and support all children to close gaps. Indeed we have a moral obligation as leaders to close these gaps, because only then do we enhance life chances, break the generational cycle of poverty and leave a legacy that we can be proud of.

“Disrupt the loop of unequal outcomes.” (Ofsted)

What if… targets for disadvantaged students were set to close gaps (not to maintain them)? Too often we set targets that simply maintain the gap (for example 4 levels progress for all). And in this moment we limit what is possible and set our ambition for disadvantaged students – we are confirming previous disadvantage – we are seeing disadvantaged students attainment as their potential and limiting our ambition for them. Disadvantaged students need the opposite of this … to be offered a deep belief in them and their ability and that with the appropriate provision delayed progress can be reversed – not least because we should see low attainment not ability and that progress is delayed not a reflection on the child’s ability or potential.

What if… we understand that quality first teaching is what matters for exploiting potential and enabling accelerated progress of disadvantaged students? Indeed quality teaching has a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged children (and in contrast to summer holiday progress, above)…

Slide17

…underlining that disadvantaged students make greater progress than advantaged students when they receive quality teaching – perhaps highlighting the appetite of disadvantaged children to learn, again reflecting delayed progress not innate ability.

“The effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds: over a school year, such pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of learning with very effective teachers, compared with 0.5 years with poorly performing teachers … For poor pupils the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher can result in a deficit of a whole year’s learning.” (Ofsted)

What if… we realised that where Academies only go as far as identifying disadvantaged students on seating plans (or similar) that this could be limiting potential of disadvantaged students; as teachers make unhelpful assumptions about the child’s potential and become content that this child is keeping pace (or slightly behind the progress of advantaged children!)? Quite the opposite is required; disadvantaged children need to outstrip the progress of advantaged children – targets need to reflect greater gains in progress.

What if… we enabled a continuous discussion and strategy-sharing between teachers and pastoral staff to identify strategies and approaches that specifically support disadvantaged children – and that these are made explicit and employed to support students to make accelerated progress.

What if… we recognised that it is the quality of feedback (built-in, not after the event – that is particularly important for disadvantaged children) and what is done with it as well as the quality of differentiation that has the strongest opportunity to accelerate the progress of disadvantaged students.

“To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success–the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history–with a society that provides opportunities for all.” (Malcolm Gladwell)

What if… we considered the language that we use in lessons and across the Academy when talking about children with low attainment or delayed progress? How often do we talk about ability as if it is fixed or imply that there are limits and ceilings for some children. How far do we employ a growth mindset approach and a language of effort and opportunity?

What if… we remember that effort and opportunity are the greatest determinant on success in almost every area of life? Dweck, Coyle and Gladwell provide compelling evidence that learning and progress is achieved through effort, deliberate practice and the development of myelin within the brain. Disadvantaged students are not wired differently or born less clever…all of which demonstrates that (almost) all gaps can be closed and rates of progress increased. (Accepting that extreme neglect in early childhood can create physical changes in the brain).

Perhaps all of this will help to disrupt the loop of unequal opportunity that hold disadvantaged children back; reversing the cycle of poverty.

“Children experiencing poverty face multiple disadvantages that often continue throughout their lives and all too often continue on to the next generation.” (Child Poverty Strategy 2014-17)

Maybe then…

  • There would be a deep and wide-held belief in the possibility of closing all gaps. That there is eye-watering ambition for all students.
  • We would not equate low attainment as low ability. Such that our targets should reflect an acknowledgement that this is delayed progress.
  • We would develop  a greater understanding of what it means to be disadvantaged.
  • We understand that the educational system actually reinforces and perpetuates gaps, because cultural capital and early advantage enables advantaged students flourish.
  • We use system leadership and connections to equalise access to early advantage when children are 0-4 and through Primary into Secondary.
  • We no longer set targets for disadvantaged that simply maintain or worse open gaps wider for disadvantaged students.
  • We would realise that we often put into place strategies and approaches (perhaps through pupil premium funding) that simply enable advantaged students to continue their “accumulated advantage.”
  • We continue to invest in quality first teaching (particularly feedback and differentiation) so that disadvantaged children are freed and supported to make progress.
  • We remind and promote that ability is not fixed and that through effort and deliberate practise everything is possible.

“Education and organisations should be judged by how well it supports its most vulnerable and disadvantaged to achieve and feel success.”

May 2015