Support vs intervention

Mainstream and extension classes are able to access the  year level curriculum as set by the Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA).  Some students for a range of reasons are unable to access this curriculum.  To assist them requires a level of differentiation either through ongoing additional support or intervention.

Reasons for requiring differentiation are extensive.  Gaps in conceptual understanding happen for many reasons - illness, teaching quality, taking holidays during term, sporting commitments, lack of ability, mental health, lack of cultural support, lack of confidence, peer conflict, family conflict.  

Whether a child requires ongoing additional support or intervention requires careful analysis to see if it is feasible to bridge the student back to the year level curriculum or if they will require ongoing additional support throughout schooling.

Support classes acknowledge that students are unlikely to access the year level curriculum and are typically assessed against what they can do through procedures such as SEN reporting.  This allows the  student to achieve success in the classroom and promotes engagement.  Parents need to be informed and on board with the decision if students are moved to supported environments.  It is not a decision that can be made lightly.

Intervention is different, is less frequently done during normal classroom time and typically done through tutoring and outside of the classroom.  When done in the classroom, interventions are measures introduced that assist students learn the behaviours and techniques known by mainstream students whilst preventing the student from falling further behind.  This means that students that are behind, have to work harder in class than students on syllabus, to catch up, something difficult to achieve with struggling students.  EALD students and highly motivated students are groups where catchup is possible, particularly where literacy is the inhibitor.

Streams encounter the issues solved through intervention frequently as behaviours required in higher streams need to be taught to students in lower streams to increase the chances of success prior to transition.  Where this is not done effectively, students are less likely to find success in classes that they are moved to and transition takes longer to achieve.  Typically intervention during transition is required in the form of encouragement, academic assistance and peer alignment to bridge students to the requirements of the new stream.

Working hours

The common perception is that teachers are overworked and underpaid.  There are times  when this is still  true.  The first three years as a graduate teacher is a slog.  Exam marking.  Designing investigations.  Managing 30 adolescents is hard.

.. but.. are teachers actually doing the quoted average 60 hours per week? Possible reasons for working these hours are lack of organisation, failure to collaborate, capacity building, reinventing the wheel, "recovery time", carrying unproductive staff, behaviour management and allocation of duties beyond the classroom. At face value it appears to be a misconception that isn't really happening and is based on historical/aged evidence.

Today we buy exams, work across schools to share assessments, mark formally less frequently, have programmes that describe what to teach, when to assess and what to assess that are trialled and tested over multiple years (the last full syllabus refresh was 2016ish), have IT to assist reusing of resources, have significant item banks to draw assessment from.  It is not clear what the majority of teachers are doing that takes increased working hours beyond the 37.5 normal working week.

Teachers have 20ish hours of contact time - that leaves an additional 40 hours (according to the average) of time doing DOTT tasks (of which traditionally 20 hours are unpaid, recompensed through additional holidays and flexible time outside of school hours).  The lack of auditing of what teachers are doing to ensure that time is being efficiently used talks to systemic management inefficency and appears to be an area that can be investigated for more productive use of public monies.

Yet the perception is that teachers are overworked and underpaid.  This perception shift needs to occur towards that we are in a priviledged situation and have a profession that is well staffed, conditioned, paid and catered to.  It is an unpopular postulate that we are not overworked/underpaid but one that needs to be considered and marketed.

Streaming - not as simple as moving a student.

I spend considerable time each term dealing with streaming issues.  The issues in each stream are significant and relate to the perceptions of how streams should work by stakeholders.  Some of the issues faced below occur each term and relate to students wishing to move streams.

1. Stream sniping: A disengaging student in the bottom third of a class seeks access to a lower stream to find success and claims demotivation/anxiety as primary reason for lack of success.  Where a large gap exists between streams, by allowing a high ability student into a lower ability class, it has the potential to demotivate current students finding success in the lower stream.  The preferred solution is to use engagement strategies to again make the student competitive in the higher stream.

2. Teacher pedagogy: A student is struggling to adapt to teaching methods of a teacher compared to a teacher in a previous year. This is most evident when moving from an inexperienced teacher that teaches a narrow directed course to a more experienced teacher that drives a conceptual course in middle secondary years.  Issues can also relate to over or under expectation of students, particularly late maturing boys or over emotional girls.   The preferred solution is recognise the issue and to develop the capacity for independent learning whilst providing additional support for students struggling in transition.

3. Performance Anxiety: A student who has experienced significant failure over time may be unable to function optimally under assessment conditions.  The preferred solution is to focus on what has been learned from each assessment and provide alternate assessment feedback to the student to indicate their learning.  

4. Restreaming resistance: Teachers can provide significant resistance to restreaming students as it can cause considerable disruption to stable environments to continue to have students introduced to a class.  Popular teachers able to cater with difficult students can often have classes swell in size if not observed carefully. Where restreaming has been successful, the temptation is to introduce more students that are also struggling to see if a similar result can be obtained.  The solution here in most cases is to resist re-streaming outside of defined streaming times during the year in all but extreme cases and limit transition issues to defined periods during the year to maximise learning for all students in each class.  

5. Parent nag: A student can nag their parent into continuous follow up with the school where no evidence exists that a student warrants moving.  This can often follow when a student is allowed to move for legitimate reasons and friends or students with lower results see it as a path to lower work expectations.  The solution for this is a clear understanding of the evidence base for the student (current ranking, standardised testing, prior grades) and re-presenting this nicely back to the parent.  Often this is as simple as replying with their ranking and indicating that others would be considered first.

6. Disengagement: Where students disengage on mass, as issue exists for the teacher to re-engage the class.   The solution requires examining pedagogy, engagement strategies, expectations, content and audience to identify strategies that may work.  This can require questioning teaching philosophies and compromising principles to get students to a position where learning recommences.

7. Isolation: This is a hard one.  Where a student is an isolate in a class and friendship groups are elsewhere, especially students with limited social skills, the requirement to move class can be legitimate.  The performance of a student in this situation where a student is on their own or where a class has turned on them (girls in particular can be mean in this situation), moving the student can be required.  This should be done in conjunction with student services to ensure that the teacher isn't then nagged by a wider range of students.

8. Transition: A student transitioning from a lower to a higher pathway needs time to transition as there will be considerable gaps in understanding, particularly closer to Year 10.  Students in this situation need constant care and encouragement to find success.  To promote success, students should be primed as to the expected behaviours of the new class and be preloaded with material prior to movement to support their success in the new class.

Streaming is not a simple solution to drive learning - it is a blunt instrument that is used at specific  times of the year to ability group students.  After it is done, time is needed to assess the requirements for the next streaming point - constant change will result in making it difficult to settle the streams and get them right - it is better to use differentiation between streaming points and make better streams than to use streams as diagnostic tools to provide students opportunities and disrupt the learning of many, constantly.  Those involved with streaming know this intuitively, as they have to deal constantly with the demands of restreaming otherwise.

Approaches to teaching

There are many common approaches to teaching and they tend to develop as teachers gain experience.  

When teachers start out, especially in Maths, a text is your best friend.  It helps with sequencing, pacing, depth and the hidden elements/assumed knowledge of a syllabus.  There is a lot to do. By reading a few texts treatment of a topic, the main elements can be drawn out and students are given sufficient practice to get by.  Link it together with some worksheets and the occassional activity that is broadly linked to the topic (Kahoots are the current tool of choice) and a class won't get too bored with the approach.  Teaching is predominantly aimed bottom/middle with some end of chapter extension work.  Teachers are generally time poor, trying to cope with a variety of demands on their time whilst trying to demonstrate their enthusiasm and confidence.

As time passes, dependence on the text becomes less, the teacher evaluates where the class is at the start of a topic via some form of formative assessment, teaches the content that the syllabus indicates and provides practice to the class, balanced by the capacity of the class - developing its work ethic, revision strategies, collaborative skills and appreciation for learning.  The focus is reasonably narrow to ensure that the main ideas are cemented in for the next topic, making teaching a bit stop/start.  The difficulty level may shift from topic to topic based on the strength of students but the content taught is basically the same across the class.  Teachers are still time poor, but time spent is more effectively on the tasks chosen, the ability to collaborate is significantly higher and the search for efficient partnerships with other teachers begin, typically for resource sharing and assessment writing.

Ultimately the teacher can teach each topic without the text, gains a feel for where the class is at (usually based on time to complete initial tasks) and a lesson becomes a journey through the topics bridging from one idea to the next, creating a picture in the mind of the student of mathematics and establishing the elegance and wonder of mathematical process and solutions.  The text is used only as an example of how increasingly abstract concepts taught can be applied widely, providing opportunities to explore and journey in ever wider circles bridging between different branches of mathematics.  Focus is given to the individual needs of each student and the method of teaching is adapted as required. The skill of the teacher is ensuring that main concepts are well understood, changing the order of learning if required, but ensuring flow/engagement is maintained during learning.  Collaboration becomes more effective, reflecting on effectiveness of learning in different contexts, not just looking at resource sharing.

Many times when a student complains about a teacher, it is that they are familiar with a particular style of teaching, have adapted to it, were doing better and are finding it difficult to evolve to a new style.  All three styles above can support high and low achieving students within acceptable parameters, but the responses of students will be different.

Understanding where a teacher is in their own learning journey assists with setting fair expectations and areas for reflection.  Judgement by others should be suspended with understanding taking its place, being patient as each teacher moves through their current level of learning towards teaching competency.