Integrating English and Maths Bron Ray The Law

Integrating English and Maths Bron Ray

‘The Law of Diminishing Courageousness affects us the closer we get to an Ofsted inspection’ Vic Goddard, Principal, Passmores Academy and star of Educating Essex

Become an expert • Invest time in keeping up to date with current ideas • Engage with ideas and research • Be part of the debate/agenda, e. g. GCSE as ‘gold standard’? ?

Most importantly: Be authentic

Paulo Friere Literacy is essential to the struggle for social justice: he says we ‘read the word and the world’. The objective of the literacy campaign is ‘for the people to participate effectively’ In short, literacy, and therefore knowledge, is power: ‘Language and power are inextricably intertwined’.

Or… "The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. "

Context for English and Maths Dramatic increase in provision needed to meet the Government drive to improve standards: • All 16 -19 students to achieve GCSE grade A*-C (current grading system) • Alternative qualification for those unable to rise above grade D (Functional Skills) • Reformed GCSEs • Address low levels of adult literacy and numeracy (have adults been lost in the drive for all to have GCSEs? ).

Current provision at Northern College Discrete programme, including: • Non-accredited introductory courses in Maths and English • Accredited courses in both subjects include: • Entry 3 national certificates (NCFE) • Level 1 Awards (OCN) • Level 1 and 2 Functional Skills • GCSEs

Current provision at Northern College (continued) Integration of English and Maths skills: • Tutors integrate the development of these skills into other subject areas, by adapting delivery of activities to promote skills development. • Workshops are provided for learners on different programmes. • Learners on long courses have English and Maths development, leading to qualifications.

But it’s been a long time baby…

Myth? . . . Ofsted are only interested in success rates.

Leadership and Management • English and Maths should be led from the top • Someone senior takes responsibility and drives the agenda • Strategic priority is given to the issue • Effective operational management of provision • Staffing capacity to meet increased need

Teaching, Learning & Assessment • Understand the barriers to learning English or Maths • Build on prior success • Value development of SPa. G • English or Maths is developed for a purpose • With Maths, there is a positive approach to changing the attitude that it’s ok to be bad at Maths.

Continued… • More than one way of getting it right (valuing learners’ starting points and also having a bank of options at the ready in case one method doesn’t work) • Learners feel safe to make mistakes and able to learn from them via effective feedback • Learners develop skills in a practical context leading to an understanding of the purpose.

Outcomes for learners • Not just about data and quals. • Learners demonstrate increased confidence and motivation (attendance, punctuation etc. ) • Greater independence in improving skills • Increased accuracy in work (demonstrated through evidence of progress), pride in achievement • Assessments enable progress (ie effective feedback)

So what the inspectors want to see… • Learners understand concepts and how they relate to their other learning and daily life • They are motivated to learn, not just get test answers right • Gaining independence • Developing accuracy • Progression coming from challenging targets (not just quals).

Marina’s 4 areas to consider • Upskill staff, invest in those with the ‘right’ attitude • Have a senior member of staff as the driver (but someone who believes, not just paying lip -service) • Staff proud to teach English and Maths • Work on learner independence

My number one: Know your learners and know your data: ‘Work has developed significantly this year with the team engaging more closely with performance data. This has been alongside a long-held understanding that the statistics represent real people and their lives and this is fundamental to the success of the programme’.

What did we do? (2013) A review of provision: • Met with individual tutors from different programme areas • Explored activities that take place in teaching and learning and how the provision is planned • T&L activities were explained • Looked at: Schemes of Work, lesson plans, ILPs

What was discovered… Provision seemed to fall into 4 main categories: 1. Excellent provision for supporting learners’ broader subject learning goals. This was apparent through systematic planning for the development of English and Maths skills to enable learners to access other subject activities. Planning was evidenced in schemes of work and session plans. 2. Some provision for supporting and developing the above. This was ad hoc and not clearly planned e. g. through documentation or, when discussed, actually in thought. 3. Some acknowledgement that learners need to use certain English and Maths skills to do an activity in another subject (skills used tend to be listed on plans, but not explicitly developed). 4. No real consideration of integration of English and Maths. Note: the majority were 2 & 3.

Key issues… • Lack of evidence of systematic planning for development of skills • Often, tutors found it difficult to articulate exactly what/how they were integrating English and Maths, even when they were actually doing it (i. e. it’s not because they had nothing to tell me!). Implications for articulating it to learners (and inspectors!)

What did we do? A series of small activities to develop staff confidence in articulating exactly what they were doing and why, including: • Staff asked to share ideas at meetings, e. g. sessional tutor briefings, team meetings, whole staff meetings. • Examples of simple, bite-sized activities that can be used in class were circulated. • A crib sheet of terminology for tutors to make use of at the planning stage was circulated. • One-to-one ‘buddy’ system for planning and evaluation of activities. • A focus of the developmental observation process. • Offers of peer observations of short classroom activities. • A key focus for peer review of materials with the Principal in 2013/14.

Peer review 2013/14: what we found • Of the 24 tutors from across all curriculum areas who took part, about 50% were articulately describing grade 1 provision of development of skills. • All tutors were able to explain their approach clearly and valued the impact it could have on their learners. • Excellent examples from across the curriculum that really impressed inspectors!

Where are you now? How confident are you with integrating the development of English and Maths skills in your teaching or teaching programmes? What do you currently do? What are you going to do next?

Half day workshops Session content Look at current practice and provision. Explore the language to use in your planning. Work on practical examples. Explore approaches to marking learner work for spelling, punctuation & grammar (SPAG). • Write a personal action plan for development. • •

“Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down. ” Ray Bradbury