Three years ago, we identified a worrying trend in our school. Our brightest students were making less progress over the course of their education than those who started from lower prior attainment.
We knew that motivation would be the key to boosting this group’s educational success: after all, they had the knowledge and skills, but they needed to want to become better learners.
Inspired by behavioural science, we decided to see if nudge theory could lead to significant change. Put simply, nudge theory is the idea that by shaping the environment, you can influence the likelihood that one option is chosen over another by individuals.
Nudges need to be easy, attractive, social, and timely, and it was important for us to employ a model that would be simple and flexible enough to replicate in any school context, at little cost.
More teaching and learning:
A prestigious programme
To begin with, we established a prestigious academic programme on which students could earn their place.
Through a combination of teacher nominations and objective data, we selected students who would benefit from the extra challenge - and hard work.
Sessions take place once a week and are 40 minutes long. In that time, students are given an academic paper, podcast or lecture to research. The sessions are highly demanding as the students are called upon to discuss the core ideas they have gleaned from their preparation task. Once a term, students are expected to present their own research.
The sessions develop students’ critical thinking, appreciation for scholarship, and nurture soft skills such as teamwork, oracy and being open to hearing other perspectives - but the “nudge” aspect is how visible the programme is: other pupils see their peers taking part and want to be included, too.
Nudges also need to be social, so we created a collaborative atmosphere for each group to ensure no one felt isolated. As one student told us: “When I realised the other students in my group were interested, too, I could finally relax and just be myself.”
As a result of this nudging, the programme has doubled from 10 per cent of the student population to 20 per cent in three years.
An academic challenge
To earn their place on the programme, students need to have three nominations from different members of staff testifying that they are performing at an outstanding level and perform well in an “academic challenge” - exciting projects that departments compete to offer to students each term.
From musical composition challenges to philosophy essays, there really is something for everyone. The take up of these challenges has been infectious. Our Year 9 mini extended project, for example, had a 90 per cent participation rate this year.
As students see their peers getting excited about their projects, and being praised for them, they realise how much fun intellectual collaboration is and so want to join in, too.
Nudge theory: the impact on attainment
So what impact have we seen?
Owing to Covid we only have internal data so far, but both quantitative analysis and qualitative student voice feedback confirm that we’re seeing the outcomes we hoped for.
Internal data for Years 11 and 13 - teacher predicted grades and mock exams - show that the brightest cohort of students is now contributing the most to our value-added data, having made the most progress over the last three years at school.
Students, too, are giving us wonderful feedback, and while our vision is to curate a choice architecture that generates a life-long love of learning, the nudges we have put in place have an inevitable side-benefit of developing core skills and learning strategies crucial to their lives beyond school.
If other schools are interested in introducing something similar, there are three important considerations.
The first is to give students a chance to opt out rather than opt in. You’re in unless your parents write in and tell us otherwise. Needless to say, the take-up has been as we wanted with near-complete buy-in.
The second is around autonomy. Top-down coercion backfires when it comes to changing people’s habits, so giving students a sense of autonomy is crucial. Our students choose which academic challenges they wish to take up.
The third consideration is the messaging sent out to parents. Short, sharp messaging to parents leads to more informative conversations at home, reinforcing the learning in school. Encouraging parents to ask “How was the workshop on resilience?” rather than “How was school?” yields a far more constructive and informative dialogue to consolidate learning.
Glenn Y Bezalel is director of teaching and learning at St Helen’s School for Girls, and Alice Lucas is the headmistress
