From the moment I took responsibility for GCSE English and maths retakes in the summer of discontent, when the grade boundaries for English changed and we doubled our numbers overnight, I have been searching for ways to improve student outcomes. It has been a long and, at times, professionally painful journey. Not that I was ever short of ideas though, taking a marginal gains approach in the absence of any obvious silver bullets.
Since the introduction of the conditions of funding, we have tried virtually everything. Alongside talented colleagues across the sector, we put in place various innovative solutions to the retake problem, from embedding English and maths teachers within vocational teams and streaming classes depending on incoming grades to running masterclass events and regular extra workshops.
And yet the number of students gaining their grade 4 or above, although better than in the early years, remains stubbornly lower than we hoped, or in Ofsted-speak: “too few students gain good grades in English and maths.”
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Clearly, a little more teaching in these areas, however good that teaching might be, does not alone fix the wicked problem that is GCSE English and maths retakes. That silver bullet continues to be mightily elusive.
Regular, friendly, positive contact
However, one of our more recent ideas to improve maths outcomes at Activate Learning has edged us closer. Two years ago, sixth formers from Magdalen College, a prestigious private school in Oxford, travelled across the city once a week to offer individualised maths support to a group of GCSE students. We learned a lot in the first year and last year’s cohort were incredibly successful (even though the support was cut off in late March owing to Covid).
So, what’s going on? How can an hour a week of a sixth former’s time make such an impact? In truth, we’re not altogether sure, but we suspect that the regular, friendly, positive contact from a near-peer has unlocked an emotional and confidence block in our students.
This is not so far from the findings of our behavioural insights team’s work in this area around texting supporters of GCSE students throughout the year. It also chimes completely with Activate Learning’s learning philosophy based on the brain, motivation and emotion. We promote a growth mindset, the power of “yet”, having explicitly purposeful learning and creating emotionally safe spaces to fail, try again and succeed.
Social distancing and keeping to our bubbles have prevented the Magdalen project from being repeated this year, but Covid has indirectly presented us with an unexpected silver lining instead. The government’s small group catch-up fund has enabled us to set up another innovative project in collaboration with a private tutorial company called Yipiyap.
A game-changer
Yipiyap specialises in the provision of carefully selected and diverse gap year students to deliver one-to-one or small group support in schools. When the funding was announced in August, Yipiyap was flexible - willing to offer some twilight sessions, and happy to have their tutors work through our Canvas platform and use our in-built session booking and progress monitoring systems (removing many of our safeguarding and GDPR concerns).
The tutors have all uploaded their photos, their profiles and short, engaging videos to attract our first target cohort of students sitting November exams. Within just eight weeks, we have gone from first contact to tutorial slots being booked with tutors and live sessions running. We are careful to keep within the funding rules, ensuring sessions are beyond the planned study programme hours.
Lorna Vaughan, one of our English teachers, commented: “I received very positive feedback on the support the tutor delivered with two students yesterday afternoon. Both found it incredibly helpful and felt that the tutor was very knowledgeable with every question presented.”
Business has been brisk. One maths student even booked in five back-to-back sessions - a keenness we had not fully anticipated.
Have we found the silver bullet hidden in this silver lining? It is far too soon to make any predictions, but you have to be optimistic to continue to work in this field. What if small-group, targeted support does prove to be the game-changer we have all be looking for? What if the allocation of ring-fenced funds in the future actually meant that we could shift those percentages of passes at grade 4 and above for the majority of young people, rather than those who are only just below the grade boundary and have otherwise strong academic skills?
We will see in good time, but for now, I am holding on to that silver lining and hoping that by bringing in these peer tutors, we have finally found that silver bullet after all.
Anne Haig Smith is director, applied learning foundation at Activate Learning
