Abstract
This article reports on a teacher inquiry project in a primary school that serves disadvantaged communities on the outskirts of a de-industrialised city in the north of England. Of particular concern is a small group of white British boys in receipt of free school meals, who are identified by the school as disaffected and as a consequence vulnerable in terms of their educational achievement. The focus of the teacher inquiry was to identify the contributory factors that prompted these boys’ disaffection, described here in patterns of disruption and disengagement. The article argues for teachers to problematize and take into account the social context of schooling and considers the complexities of these boys’ lived experiences and the ways these impact on their learning and achievement. In developing this argument, the article draws on the work of Johnson (Using data to close the achievement gap. How to measure equity in our schools. Corwin Press Inc., Thousand Oaks, 2002) and Johnson and La Salle (Data strategies to uncover and eliminate hidden inequities. The wallpaper effect. Corwin Press Inc., Thousand Oaks, 2010) in regard to the ‘other data’ that needs to be generated to show factors which perpetuate poor student performance and which hide real issues of inequity: ‘the wallpaper effect’.
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Notes
The Department for Education sets ‘floor targets’ for all schools which indicate the percentage of students expected to achieve certain levels at the end of each Key Stage. These targets are applied indiscriminately to all schools, regardless of the prior attainment of students or the socio-economic circumstances of the school community.
In July 2013, at the end of the project, the teacher involved was offered a position at one of the city’s universities. As a result she now holds responsibility for teaching and mentoring undergraduate and postgraduate students on university led teacher education degree programmes.
Free school meals is a benefit awarded to children under the age of 19 where their parents or carers are in receipt of state benefits or income support. The percentage of children claiming FSMs is used as a standard measure of poverty by the government, however it does not reflect accurately the percentage of children in a school eligible for FSMs.
Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It is an independent body which is responsible for inspections of all state schools, which occur at least once every five years (more frequently for underperforming schools). Schools receive between zero and two days’ notice of an inspection, which typically lasts for 2 days. The subsequent inspection report surmises the effectiveness of a school, ranking it on a scale between grade 4 (inadequate) and grade 1 (outstanding), with particular attention to academic attainment, the quality of teaching, students’ behaviour and the quality of school management.
RAISE online is an annual report produced by the Department for Education (DfE) in conjunction with Ofsted and delivered to all schools in the autumn term. It provides data on the attainment and progress of students at the end of Key Stage 1 and 2, and in the national phonics test taken at the end of year 1, with comparisons made to schools nationally.
Pupil Premium funds are an extra payment provided by the government to schools, specifically for disadvantaged students. Any student in a school who has been eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous six years is awarded the funding. Schools are held accountable for progress and attainment of these students, and are required to publish online details of the plan for the spending of the Pupil Premium funds and the impact it has had. The allocation and impact of Pupil Premium funding is also monitored by the schools inspectorate, Ofsted.
The Department for Education introduced a phonics screening check for all Year 1 students in 2012. The screening check involves students using synthetic phonics to decode a list of real and nonsense words. It is expected that all primary schools use systematic synthetic phonics as the sole approach to teaching early reading.
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Nuttall, A., Doherty, J. Disaffected Boys and the Achievement Gap: ‘the wallpaper effect’ and What is Hidden by a Focus on School Results. Urban Rev 46, 800–815 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-014-0303-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-014-0303-8