Raising Achievement of Boys at Key Stage 4 Through Literacy Strategies
By Rachel Hindle
Introduction
‘We face a genuine problem of under-achievement among boys, particularly those from working class families. This under-achievement is linked to a laddish culture which in many areas has grown out of deprivation, and a lack of both self-confidence and opportunity’.
(Blunkett, DfEE, 2000).(1)
Each August national post mortems into GCSE exam results highlight the growing division between the achievement of boys and girls. Anyone who works within the education system is conscious of this predicament and despite a wealth of ideas each year this remains a key issue.
A number of reasons have been put for to explain why girls out perform so disproportionately to boys at Key Stage 4. Here are some of the theories that have been put forward:
1. Innate intelligence
2. Emotional Immaturity
3. Literacy discrepancies
4. Learning Styles
5. Gender inequality
6. Gender stereotyping
(DfEE, 1998b). HMI found that nation-wide:
‘Standards of writing, however, were judged to be weaker, with about one fifth of secondary schools having pupils whose standards in writing were ‘poor or very poor’. (2)
Initial Assessment scores for my Yr 10 GCSE History group would concur that literacy is a significant factor in the progress of many students. A poor command of basic English rules has seriously hindered levels of attainment (poor sentence structure, poor grammar and punctuation). Undoubtedly the boys in my group display poor levels of literacy most consistently. From marking assessments and exercise books, it has become apparent that a number of boys in the class fail to apply even the most rudimentary of punctuation / grammar conventions! Repeatedly sentences are absent of capital letters or any meaningful conjunctions.
Literacy was by no means the only factor that was having a negative impact on the achievement of many boys in the group. Indeed, several of the categories affecting progress could be linked (‘laddish’ attitudes towards learning, expectations from outside the class). I decided that tackling levels of literacy would be a key foundation stone to improving achievement in this cohort of students.
(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/aug/21/alevels2000.educationnews
(2) www.teachernet.gov.uk
Literacy Strategies Implemented:
Writing Frames
Pupils were given the starters for their paragraphs and the key content that students needed to include identified. As I walked around the class, a number of pupils had negated to copy this structure from the board. I challenged these pupils both individually and by stopping the whole class and reiterating how pupils needed to follow this writing frame. Incredibly, three pupils continued to ignore the advice given and when challenged asked ‘if it really mattered’! (3)
Literacy Toolkit
As a part of their homework, pupils were asked to download the school’s literacy toolkit (a flash presentation). Time was spent in lesson showing pupil how to access the toolkit and directing them to just the section on ‘sentence rules and common sentence errors’. A question for homework was then set and pupils instructed to use the toolkit as a way of formulating the structure of their answers. Unfortunately, the lack of homework completed by many of the boys (DD, SG, RW, JL, NH) invalidated the aim of the exercise – notably many of the group claimed they had downloaded the toolkit onto memory sticks and offered me to check! (4)
Model Answers
As pupils completed assessments in class I wrote model answers at the same time. In doing so I directed pupils timing of answering questions. Prior to the assessment we had drafted out as a class what the content for their answers should be and how the paragraphs should be structured.
Following meetings with D.Murphy (Literacy) it was decided that the use of Model Answers would be extended and Model Answers produced to accompany some exam questions. D. Murphy will then construct a power point to use with pupils to enable them to recognise how to marry together the construction of sentences / paragraphs with the required content. (5)
Literacy Grid
After analysing the answers from my classes Yr 10 Exams it is evident that many pupils are poor at using connectives when formulating sentences. Following further discussions with D. Murphy the idea of creating a grid for pupils with selected connectives. I created a grid that provided connectives under the following categories:
· Adding
· Cause & Effect
· Sequencing
· Qualifying
· Emphasising
· Comparing
· Contrasting
· Illuminating
The initial idea I had of creating a grid in the same format as the Q - Matrix (a concept already familiar with pupils at Wood Green High School) has been harder to implement. However, it does lend itself to be adapted into a flash presentation. (6)
Extended Reading
Reading skills are intrinsically linked to raising standards of literacy. The current trend in school textbooks is to create ‘bite size’ amounts of writing. This makes setting ‘extended’ reading as a task. Some of the sources used in class do provide more developed prose.
Conclusion
Whilst some of these strategies have improved results in the class assessments, the year 10 exam demonstrated some basic literacy concerns that pupils had not sort to remedy. It is clear to see that tackling poor literacy alone is not sufficient to raise achievement. This is further supported by Bandura:
“Strategies to increase pupils’ motivation and self-esteem are a major factor in influencing achievement (Bandura, 1992). Low levels of literacy are often associated with low self-esteem with pupils tending to consider themselves stupid and unable to progress with literacy” (7)
Thus, a wide range of strategies beyond basic literacy strategies were implemented with this group. A programme of mentoring was established and parents were consulted at parents evening. As a way of raising achievement the school attendance scheme of ‘wise up’ was adapted to identify where pupils were achieving their targets or underachieving. At the year 10 parents evening those pupils who attended where given a target sheet to use to develop short-term targets before the Year 11 report cycle. (8, 9)
This is an ongoing process to raise achievement with Year 10 boys taking GCSE History.
Recommendations:
1. Basic Literacy strategies need to be implemented at the start of KS3 across all departments. Specific strategies for each subject need to be displayed in classrooms and part of planning.
2. Extended reading is I believe one of the most significant issues that needs to be addressed. Remedies need developing across the curriculum and pastorally. Formal homework, which uses extended reading and time set aside in school, need further exploration. This is an area I am seeking to develop next year.
3. Subject specific connectives need to be developed and displayed in each department. Pupils appear to struggle with understanding how to develop higher-level answers by adding connectives.
4. The issue of attendance and achievement needs closer monitoring. Clearly, where pupil’s attendance is below 90% then the effectiveness of any literacy initiatives will be negligible as the pupil simply lacks the necessary content required to gain their target grades. The impact of block lessons on the curriculum needs further consideration.(10)
5. Finally, SMART targets set at the Yr 10 Parents evening proved an effective way of communicating areas of improvement and will allow progress to be measured at future parent consultations or to discuss in subject mentoring sessions. This is a strategy that I will continue to utilise. It would be helpful to start this with Yr 9.
Paper 1 - Model Answer
1 A)
Source A is a description of the Asclepion Temple. This source is important because it demonstrates that the Greeks still believed in a supernatural explanation of illness, that gods were responsible for illnesses, and therefore only gods would be able to offer a cure! People still went to the temple for the god, Asclepius to visit them during their sleep and cure them from their sickness. However, source A does not show how some people in Greek society such as Hippocrates had started to seek more rational explanations for illness.
1B)
Source A is a description of the Asclepion Temple and shows that in Greek society there was still a strong emphasis on supernatural explanations for illness. Source B is an image of Edward the Confessor offering a cure for the disease Scrofula. Scrofula was also known as ‘the Kings Evil’, which shows that by the Eleventh Century there was still a strong belief in supernatural explanations of illness. People believed that the King had been given power by God (through the Divine Right of Kings) to cure illnesses such as Scrofula. These sources suggest that there had been limited progress made in Medicine between the Greek era and the Eleventh Century; supernatural explanations still dominated medical knowledge.
1C)
It is not too surprising to see an image of a Plague Doctor during the Fourteenth century in source C. When the Plague arrived in England in 1348, no one really knew the causes and therefore supernatural explanations for the Plague were given. The uniform of the Plague Doctor shows that ‘bad air’ was considered one of the causes of the Plague because in the image the Doctor is holding a posey of sweet smelling herbs to ward off bad smells.
Source D is another image from the Fourteenth Century and portrays a group of men who whipped themselves to gain forgiveness from God. People who did this were known as Flagellants. Again, it is not surprising that this picture shows this because some people in the Fourteenth Century believed that the Plague was caused by God punishing them for their sins and they believed that by whipping themselves in public they would gain God’s forgiveness. Both these sources confirm that in the Fourteenth century supernatural explanations were not uncommon.
4 A)
Florence Nightingale had a significant impact on Medicine. She was a lady from a wealthy background who chose to go into nursing in the mid Nineteenth Century. The most significant development Nightingale made in medicine was by raising the status of nursing. Prior to Nightingale nursing was seen as a very lowly occupation carried out by women of ill repute who were often drunk. The changes Nightingale made in nursing lasted beyond the transformation of the wards in the hospitals in the Crimea. Once she had returned to Britain Nightingale established nurses training at St Thomas’ hospital in London, thus raising the profile of nursing.
Another important contribution Nightingale made to medicine was the immediate impact she had on conditions in the Crimean field hospitals. Florence firmly believed that cleaner conditions were paramount to improving the treatment of patients. Despite strong opposition from individuals such as Sir John Hall, the chief surgeon, in the Crimea, Nightingale set about cleaning the wards by washing floors. In doing this, the mortality rate was cut from over 60% to less than 2%.
Intrinsically linked to the developments in hygiene made by Nightingale were her attempts to improve the diet of some patients. She applied to contacts back in Britain to send supplies as well as using her own money to buy food. The improvement in hygiene and diet were a notable development in the treatment of patients.
4B)
Florence Nightingale was able to make such developments in medicine for a variety of reasons. Firstly, she came from a wealthy background, which had allowed her to travel to Germany as a young woman and witness how hospitals elsewhere in Europe were won. Her wealth also enabled Florence to buy much needed equipment and food when she arrived in the Crimea. Undoubtedly, her family background also provided her with important contacts in society, which she used to improve conditions in hospitals.
A second significant reason why Nightingale was able to make the changes she did is because of her meticulous record keeping that provided much needed data to prove that her ideas had a direct impact on medicine. When she returned home, Nightingale used much of her research to begin her schools for nurses training.
Warfare was a key factor in explaining why Nightingale was able to make some of the advancements that she did in nursing. The Crimean conflict provided Nightingale with the perfect opportunity to put into practice her ideas and presented an arena for eminent people to see the benefits of her work.
Finally, Nightingale’s strength of character had a huge influence of aiding her developments. When faced with opposition, firstly from her parents and then from officers in the British army, Nightingale persevered because she had a strong sense of calling from God and she knew that her ideas would transform the care of patients.
4C)
Florence Nightingale is one of the most significant people in the History of Medicine. Her ideas had a short and long-term impact. During her time nursing in the Crimea, Nightingale’s move to improve hygiene and diet on the wards significantly reduced the death rate to just 2%. Indeed such was Nightingale’s impact at the time that she was given the title ‘the Lady of the Lamp’ because of the care she showed the soldiers.
When Nightingale returned to Britain after the war, she established nurses training in London to train women in her methods. This soon established her practices across hospitals in Britain. By creating formal training Nightingale raised the profile of nursing considerably and created a profession.
Such was the impact of Nightingale’s developments long term that wards in hospitals right into the twentieth century were referred to as ‘Nightingale Wards’. Even today, Florence Nightingale’s name remains intrinsically linked to the profession of nursing!
Further reading:
Lewis, M & Wray, D, Implementing effective literacy initiatives in the secondary school:lessons from research
Lindsay, G, Challenging underachievement in boys, University of Warwick, Educational Research, Vol. 48, No 3, pp 313 -332
Munroe, J, Improving literacy in the secondary school : An information to knowledge Innovation, The University of Melbourne