Statistical Analysis Plan: SMART Spaces: Spaced Learning Revision Programme

This statistical analysis plan sets out the planned analysis for the evaluation of SMART Spaces: Spaced Learning Revision Programme (SMART Spaces Revision), an efficacy trial funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), to investigate the effect of the intervention on the chemistry element of the GCSE double award science. The SMART Spaces revision programme uses spaced learning within chemistry revision for the AQA GCSE double award science examinations. Evidence from neuroscience and cognitive psychology (e.g. Fields, 2009) indicates that including spaces – time intervals - between learning sessions can improve factual recall. It is anticipated that improved factual recall will have a positive impact on the application and analysis as well as knowledge elements of the chemistry score in GCSE double award science. An earlier pilot study (O’Hare, Stark, McGuinness, Biggart & Thurston, 2017), also funded by the EEF, suggested that a combination of short (10 minute) and longer (approximately 24 hour or night-time sleep) spaces provides a promising model of spacing. The intervention comprises both continuing professional development (CPD) and support for teachers to deliver the SMART Spaces revision programme and teacher implementation of the programme in Year 11 science lessons. The programme consists of six lessons delivered over two weeks and is designed to space the revision of content both between and within lessons. The chemistry topics for AQA Paper 1 are covered in one SMART Spaces lesson. This lesson is repeated three times in the same week, with spaces which allow pupils a nighttime sleep between lessons. After at least one further night-time sleep, but ideally the following week, the process is repeated for content associated with AQA Paper 2. Within lessons, chemistry topics are revised using the SMART spaces materials in three short ~12- minute sessions with 10-minute spaces between each topic. During the 10-minute spaces, pupils take part in a sensorimotor activity (such as juggling). The evaluation is structured as a two-armed school-level cluster randomised controlled trial involving 125 secondary schools. Fifty-four schools were allocated to receive the intervention and 71 to a business as usual control group. Recruitment occurred in Spring-Autumn 2018 with the aim of initiating training for teachers in intervention schools in November 2018. The evaluation will look at the impact of the programme on pupils’ performance on the chemistry element of the AQA GCSE double award science

Best practice in mixed attainment grouping

Becky Taylor, Tom Francome and Jeremy Hodgen report on research findings exploring the issue of teaching secondary mathematics in mixed attainment classes

The Student Grouping Study: investigating the effects of setting and mixed attainment grouping

The study uses a matched design in a natural context, to explore the difference in student outcomes of two approaches to grouping students: grouping by ability (or setting), and mixed attainment grouping. As such, the research team will not be delivering an ‘intervention’, but will be measuring the outcomes of grouping practices already in use in recruited schools. Our description of the practices being compared follows the TIDieR1 framewor

Low-Attaining Secondary School Mathematics Students’ Perspectives on Recommended Teaching Strategies

Recent research syntheses have identified several potentially high-leverage teaching strategies for improving low-attaining secondary school students’ learning of mathematics. These strategies include the structured use of representations and manipulatives and an emphasis on derived facts and estimation. This paper reports on 70 semi-structured interviews conducted with low-attaining students in Years 9–10 (ages 13–15) in England. The interviews addressed the students’ perceptions of learning mathematics and the teaching strategies that they experienced and believed were most helpful. Many students reported rarely using number lines, not spontaneously estimating answers and being unfamiliar with derived facts. During the interviews, with minimal direction, students often showed that they were well able to make use of these strategies; however, they did not report making spontaneous use of them independently. We conclude that many of the most well-evidenced and recommended strategies to support low-attaining students in mathematics appear to be unfamiliar and unvalued, and we discuss how this might be addressed

Pedagogical devices as children’s social care levers: A study of social care workers’ attitudes towards boarding schools to care for and educate children in need

It has been proposed that boarding schools in England can be used to provide a stable education and care environment for vulnerable children in need, and the government is expanding their use. However, for vulnerable children to be placed in boarding schools, social workers will need to be willing to contemplate boarding as a viable care option. In this study we interviewed N = 21 social care practitioners including directors, senior and middle managers, frontline social workers, social worker‐academics and family support workers who work with vulnerable children. Using thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews, seven major themes identified a range of issues and concerns held by social care workers about placing vulnerable children in boarding schools. We present these themes and consider the issues that will have to be addressed prior to changes in policy and practice. The study concludes that many of those within the social work profession are unlikely to consider boarding as an intervention for children in need. Further research in this area is a matter of urgency

Factors deterring schools from mixed attainment teaching practice

Mixed-attainment teaching has strong support from research and yet English schools are far more likely to teach students in ‘ability’ groups. Although research has considered some of the specific benefits of mixed-attainment grouping, there has been little attention to the reasons schools avoid it. This article explores data from the pilot and recruitment phases of a large-scale study into grouping practices and seeks to identify reasons for the low rate of mixed attainment grouping in English secondary schools. We report on our struggle to recruit schools, and explore the different explanations provided by teachers as to why mixed attainment practice is seen as problematic. The difficulties are characterised as a vicious circle where schools are deterred by a paucity of exemplars and resources and the educational climate is characterised as fearful, risk-averse and time-poor. Suggestions are made as to strategies to support schools in taking up mixed attainment practices