Raising Achievement for All

Michael O’Neill, OBEMelbourne

October 2008

The Merchant of Venice Bassanio

The School Orchestra Trumpet

Roy of the Rovers Striker

Mikhail Botvinnic Chess Champion

Tom Fitzpatrick

Winifred Dean

Denis Cuddihy

Gerry Bonner

Self Belief - Motivation - Values - Role Models

What do you remember from your

School days?

‘There is a link between deprivation and underachievement, a link which must be broken if we are to give our young people an equal chance to succeed. We must discover a way of challenging and enabling young people to achieve what they are capable of achieving, irrespective of background, gender, race or levels of ability or disability. For this reason the education department has adopted as its motto Aiming Higher, and has identified Raising Achievement for All as its key policy direction’.

RAFA, 1998

The Challenge: to break the links between disadvantage and underachievement:

League Tables“Attainment or Affluence?”

Povertycharacterised by

Poor diet / housing

High mortality rates

Inadequate range of role models

Family / neighbourhood stress

Apparent lack of parental support

Negative peer pressure

Poor study facilities

Underachievementcharacterised by

Poor level of attainment

Disaffection

High absence / truancy

Emotional / behavioural problems

Poor rates of progression to FE/HE

Low career aspirations

Low levels of…

self-esteem

confidence

aspiration

motivation

climate of negativity

What do we mean by “achievement”?

• Concept of “multiple intelligences” :

motor, spatial, aesthetic, mathematical,

linguistic, scientific, emotional

• Importance of self-esteem, motivation,

determination, aspiration in determining

success

• The development of the whole person

• The whole range of experiences social, creative, cultural , sporting, academic -

valued equally

• “Improving on previous best”

“… the time has come to broaden

our notion of the spectrum of

talents. We should spend less

time ranking children and more

time helping them to identify

their natural competences and

gifts, and cultivate those. There

are hundreds and hundreds of

ways to success and many

different abilities that will help

you get there.”

Howard Gardner

“Raising Achievement for All”

The strategy

• About everyone's right to succeed• Based on a set of beliefs about

achievement and about education

• Central focus, improving learning and

teaching• Targeting resources to combat

disadvantage

• Intervening at critical stages

• Celebrating success

• Targets of input, experience and

outcome

New Opportunities Fund grant for

the North Lanarkshire Music College

the North Lanarkshire Sports College

the North Lanarkshire Arts College

• Expansion of free Music Instruction

• North Lanarkshire Choirs, Orchestras,Pipe band, Battle of the Bands, Jazz Band and Traditional Music groups

• Annual Concerts in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

• Residential outdoor educational experience

• Expanded Sports development programme

• Sports Comprehensives

• Music Comprehensive

• Art Summer School at Kilbowie

• Early Years focus on outdoor play , healthy eating and active learning

Developing the whole person

• Expansion of early years provision

• ‘Parental involvement / parenting skills 0-5’

• Early Intervention programme, nurture groups

• Summer Academy @ Strathclyde, S3

• Aiming Higher with Outward Bound Programme, S4

• Easter Schools, S5/6

• partnerships with employers for apprentice jobs

• Primary/Secondary Curriculum Flexibility

• P7/S1 transition:

• Summer Literacy Schools

• Theatre Skills Summer Schools

Intervening at critical stages

Funding and allocation of places weighted in respect of deprivation; staff supported in selecting pupils who will benefit most from initiatives

• Deprivation staffing allocation

• Nursery nurses in most deprived primaries

• Primary Study Support in all schools, P3/7

• Secondary Study Support, S1- S6

• Special Schools Out of School Hours Learning

• Easter Schools

• Outward Bound

• Summer Schools

Targeting resources

• North Lanarkshire “colleges”

‘it shall be the duty of the authority to ensure that the

education is directed to the development of the personality, talents and mental

and physical abilities of the child or young person to their fullest

potential’

Standards in Scotland’s Schools

Act

• Reading Recovery, P2

• Curriculum Flexibility: Age and Stage Relaxation/ Secondary Curriculum Guidelines

• Alternative Curricula: Skillforce / xl Clubs / On Track/alternative qualifications

• Looked After and Accommodated Children

• Discipline Task Force

• Looking Forward: Responding to Children’s Rights

• Gaelic Medium education / Bilingual Support

• Developing and nurturing talent: creating opportunities for excellence

Everyone’s right to succeed

Progression from Primary programme at Kilbowie Outdoor Centre

...intervening at critical stages, targeting resources, developing the whole person, everyone’s right to succeed

• 12,000 young people in 12 years’

• Week-long personal development programme at Loch Eil

• Designed to raise aspirations and develop self-esteem

• Targeted at S4, and at young people most needing support

• Linked to work in school, and to life beyond school

• Supported by the Outward Bound Trust

• Evaluated by Edinburgh University (PhD Study)

• ‘Outward Bound for Heidies’

• Involving all secondaries and special schools

Aiming Higher with Outward Bound Programme

Teaching them skills to ride that roller-coaster

“There are things that I wasn’t much exposed to in my formal education - communication skills, inter-personal skills, problem solving, an ability to think outside the prevailing boxes, for example - which I’ve had to work hard to try and acquire since.”

“My worry isn't that standards are going down the pan. It’s that a system that now educates half the population to post-school level, and utilises all the computerised learning resources it can afford to meet the task, doesn’t have the staff, the space or the time left in which to foster the range of personal skills that really make a difference, create chances and command more and more of a premium in today’s market place”

Alf Young

“Amo Amas Amat?

“When was the battle of Trafalgar?”

“Who wrote Little Women?”

Rote Learning - Content Heavy

Narrowly “Academic” - Little Real Choice

“Knowledge requires not only to be transferred to pupils but also created by them” - Benjamin Zander

Skills from the past

1900

Factory Worker

Good Timekeeping

Compliance

Silence/Obedience

Manual Skills

Routine

Are We Still Preparing Pupils for the Last CenturyAre We Still Preparing Pupils for the Last Century

2008

The Knowledge Economy

Core Skills

Innovation

Flexibility

Globalisation

Lifelong Learning

Core Skills - Transferable

Inter-Personal Skills - Social Skills

Flexibility - Learning Skills

Values - Attitudes

Skills for the Future?

Comprehensives for the 21st Century

• Amendments to modal structures to allow personalisation and choice

• Alternative curricular options

• Age and stage relaxation

• Vocational Education courses

• Enhanced Comprehensives

• Co-operative Learning

Enhanced Comprehensives

• 4 Sports Comprehensives

• 1 Music Comprehensive

• 1 Expressive Arts Comprehensive

• 1 Enterprise Comprehensive with a junior hospitality school

• 1 Science Comprehensive

• 1 Technology Comprehensive

• 1 Life Skills School ( a special school )

• 1 International Comprehensive

Enhanced Comprehensives: Raising Achievement for All

• a regular comprehensive serving the local population

• a school which uses the enhanced area as a vehicle for driving up standards, improving school ethos, reducing social exclusion and building positive lifestyles

• a school with enhanced staffing and resources to enable enhanced curricular/ extra-curricular delivery

• a school which reaches out into the community, involving associated primaries and other neighbourhood secondaries

• consistent with North Lanarkshire’s Raising Achievement for All philosophy and with the National Priorities.

An Enhanced Comprehensive:

What it is NOT:

What it IS:

• NOT a Centre of Excellence, as in other parts of Scotland

• NOT about producing elite athletes/musicians/artists etc

• NOT selective

The Sports Comprehensive: Raising Achievement for All

Aims of the Sports Comprehensive:

• to raise achievement

• to improve school ethos by promoting a strong sense of common identity

• to improve the mental and physical well-being of young people and adults

• to increase self-esteem and confidence, determination and motivation

• to develop social awareness and citizenship, leadership and teamworking

• to develop strong links with neighbourhood schools and the wider

community

• to deter anti-social behaviour

• to help young people develop a lifelong interest in sport, leading to a

healthy lifestyle.

New Curriculum Guidelines 2001

More flexibility in the modes

Less compulsion

More personalisation and choice

Age and stage relaxation.

Flexibility within the following parameters:

• All pupils should be required to continue the study of

English, Mathematics, Religious Education, Physical

Education and PSE

• All pupils should be required to study no fewer than 2 of the

remaining 4 modal areas although, of course, some pupils

may continue to study all 4 areas – Social Subjects, Science,

Technology, Creative & Aesthetic

• Up to individual schools to determine the precise nature

of the option structure within these parameters.

Disapplying two of the modal areas for individual pupils to learn and achieve to the best of their ability by allowing:

• pupils with individual strengths to emphasise a

particular curriculum area

• pupils making significantly less progress than their

peers to consolidate learning and progress across the

curriculum

• pupils to participate in programmes of vocationally-

related learning

• pupils to participate in a range of planned

opportunities.

Alternative curriculum provision and qualifications to develop core skills/attitudes

• Outward Bound

• Skillforce

• Right Track

• On Track

• XL Clubs.

Alternative Provision

• Duke of Edinburgh Award

• European Computer Driving Licence

Alternative Qualifications

• Vocational Qualifications

• First Aid Certificates

• Sports Leaders Awards

• Community Youth Awards

Vocational courses from S3 onwards

• InIn school

• Part of S2 option choices

• Alongside traditional subjects

• Recognised qualifications

• Partnerships with further education and industry

• Not a return to junior secondaries.

“There is no point

in getting more

efficient at doing

the wrong thing”