Trust Projects

Smart Kids – using coaching as a pupil and teacher personal development tool

This cluster project is an extension of the 2008-9 Smarter Schools project, funded by AZSTT. As such it involves a cluster of inspirational and innovative primary schools in North Sheffield, 

The position of science in the primary curriculum is in flux at present, with the curriculum review exciting us to explore the connections with other subjects through new Areas of Learning, and indeed making more significant endeavours to enhance the personal Skills for Learning & Life. It will be important that throughout this period of change and development primary teachers retain a high quality of provision that they have established whilst being open to new ideas, innovation and sometimes uncertainty.

Teachers, however experienced or committed, still report a thirst for improved subject knowledge, new ideas relating to pedagogy especially relating to cross curricular links, further insight into active forms of assessment and greater understanding of how to embed personal skills & capabilities within subject or content rich lessons.

This project, which will extend the work of the Smarter Schools project 08-09 looks to equip children with the skills of pupil-coaching as a method to reflect in a semi-structured way on their science and skills learning. So far we have been unable to find any circumstances where this type of work is being undertaken in primary schools.

Teachers feel that were children able to sit and reflect on their learning and talk about their feelings, issues and experiences in a dedicated way, they would be empowered to talk personal responsibility over their own development. By giving them the skills to coach a peer they would develop the skills of active listening and questioning, with the purpose of supporting their peer in working out for themselves ways that they feel they could move forward and achieve their goals. By giving the children the opportunity to talk about their science and skills learning in a dedicated way would provide them with a window of uninterrupted time in which they could look at how they learn, talk about the issues that particular tasks or experiences raised, consider the things that they still find problematic and explore their strengths related to the way they learnt etc.

The project will work with those children who just fall ‘in the middle or just below’ sometimes these children are referred to as ‘invisible’. Very often of average or just below average ability, they demonstrate unchallenging behaviour, cope well with most routines and school activities and attend on a regular basis. Often because they pose no threat to social or academic wellbeing of the classroom or school these children are overlooked when specific intervention projects are undertaken. We feel that by giving the invisible children the opportunity to develop pupil-coaching skills there is potential to be able to lever their learning to new heights, indeed making significant inroads into their achievement and confidence in learning science and skills, such that they breach their current achievement targets and go well beyond.

Aims

The project will focus on 2 key areas of coaching development linked to science and skills learning.
To develop pupil coaching partnerships in order to enhance the review and reflection of pupil’s science and skills learning, as a means to improving pupil achievement in science.
Process
• to identify groups of children in a variety of year groups (negotiated with teachers) considered to be ‘invisible’ and to train them as pupil-coaches. They would experience teachers modelling the necessary skills and practice being a coach and coachee, as a method of reflecting on their science & personal skills learning.
• to provide structure to the coaching activities, by developing a programme of activity which enables pupils to experience a range of scientific enquiry and skills learning, which will form the basis of the coaching exercises
• to explore methods of recording the outcomes of the coaching partnership work so that the children have a sense of progression in their thinking about science and skills.
• to inform teachers, teaching assistants and parents/carers of the process of pupil-coaching in order to be able to support the peer-peer coaching partnerships
Outcomes:
• improved pupils’ confidence in talking about their science learning
• improved pupil awareness of how they learn
• improved pupils’ achievement in science

Programme

To develop a sustainable model of whole-school coaching modelled on a programme of work on the theme of ‘Enhancing pupils’ scientific and personal capability’
Process:
• for all teachers and teaching assistants in each of the cluster schools to form sustainable coaching partnerships and practice as a coordinated method of reflection, using written reflections (and Meta Coaching as optional)
• for the existing Hub teachers to coordinate the coaching practice, by providing some structure associated with science and skills ideas and pedagogy
• for aspects of new learning to be ‘hot-spotted’ and incorporated into the Whole School Development plan and the Science School Improvement Plan: namely strategies found useful to develop Scientific Enquiry and strategies found useful to develop Skills for Learning. These will form the basis for the coaching practice.
• for teachers on a school wide basis to trial the ‘hot-spotted’ science and skills strategies, collecting evidence of impact on professional development, practice and pupil learning.

Key Stage 1
Science lesson undertaken. Key focus on developing scientific enquiry and skills of learning. (Drawing on hot-spotted areas of work if desired). Teaching assistant support during science lesson and the coaching session.
Towards end of lesson, teacher works with ‘invisible’ group whilst teaching assistant facilitates regular plenary activity with rest of class.
Pupil group (of around 10) become familiar with coaching practices, initially the teacher is the coach and the children act as a coachee group or pair, until the time when they are ready to form independent coaching pairs.
Teacher records discussions initially in a big/floor book style. Later it will be required to explore methods of recording by the children.
Working in this non judgmental way will give those lacking in confidence greater self esteem and put them in touch
with their “pupil voice”. Success will be if they start to speak up in class and show deeper understanding.
 

Key Stage 2
Science lesson undertaken. Key focus on developing scientific enquiry and skills of learning. (Drawing on hot-spotted areas of work if desired – see below for explanation of ‘hot-spotting’). Teaching assistant support during science lesson and the coaching session.
Towards end of lesson, whole class form a horseshoe arrangement of chairs in classroom. Note: this is not the plenary.
Children organise themselves into coaching pairs or triads. Dialogue is semi-structured between children to explore the progress they made in the lesson. Prompt questions for support using Coaching ‘Powerful Questions’
Records of outcomes of coaching to be explored – some form of independent written record is preferable, e.g. mind map, log book, diary etc.
Any specific issues that arise i.e. misconceptions in science, difficulty with a specific ‘skill for learning’ could be dealt with in ‘Smart Surgeries’ – a 10-20 min slot allocated during the week, to addressing these issues.
 

Evaluation

Information that will contribute towards the internal evaluation will be mainly qualitative with aspects of quantitative:
- outcomes from pupil coaching exercises (dependent on method of recording chosen)
- pupil feedback via two focus group sessions with pupils undertaking coaching experiences
- baseline and final teacher assessments of pupil progress
- outcomes from the Magnifier experiences (qualitative diaries)
- interim and final teacher/pupil questionnaires related to attitude to learning and science
- minutes from evaluation meetings with Hub teachers and SLT
 

Additional

Outline dissemination plan
Disseminating the outcomes of this project could take the form of:
• Association for Science Education regional and national conference workshops
• Educational journals and newspaper submissions, e.g. Primary Science Review, TES
• A short published leaflet profiling the project that will be printed and disseminated to all Specialist Schools and Academies Trust schools and across Sheffield Local Authority.
• Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, Science Learning Centre Network and Local Authority newsletters
• Centre for Science Education & Regional Science Learning Centre websites, with link organisations where possible, written or co-written by teachers
• Sheffield Local Authority advisers/ consultants will be invited to visit the schools or attend one of the Magnifier sessions
 

Contact

Penny Thompson - Contact email: p.thompson@shu.ac.uk