Learning in Schools case studies

To set up interviews or for full length case studies contact Louise Dennis.

E-mail: ldennis@cflearning.org.uk or tel: 020 7766 0003

Wilbury Primary School

Formative assessment is being used by one school in Enfield not only to raise pupil standards but to develop lifelong learners of the future. Wilbury Primary School has been exploring the effect of formative assessment on standards as part of the Campaign for Learning's Learning to Learn in Schools Research project, with very promising results.

Only a year into the three-year programme teaching pupils to assess their own writing and already the SAT results in writing have shown a marked improvement. All 60 of the pupils taking part in the project improved their writing point scores in the SATs from an average of 7.9 to 14.9, well above the average increase for pupils in comparison classes.

Ann Mulcahy, deputy head at Wilbury, said the school chose to study the effects of formative assessment with the aim of developing reflective and resourceful learners, capable of assessing their own writing and communicating with others to advance their learning. She says, "The school chose to take part in the Learning to Learn project to not only raise writing standards but also pupils' ability to transfer learnt skills to other contexts and to improve their understanding of how they learn. These are vital skills for lifelong learning."

Fleecefield Primary School

The introduction of paired learning in a school in Enfield is having a real effect on raising pupil standards. For the past year Fleecefield Primary School has been researching the use of pairs and groups in the classroom as part of the Campaign for Learning's Learning to Learn project. Already there have been improvements in reading and writing based on teacher assessments, as well as changes in pupil attitudes and confidence both in and outside the classroom.

Based in the heart of Edmonton, North London, Fleecefield is a truly inclusive school where over 50% of the children speak English as an additional language. Many of the children selected for paired learning lacked confidence in their ability and found speaking out in class a challenge. This was the reason behind the introduction of paired learning as a way of developing confident and capable lifelong learners. Emma Glasner, Assistant Headteacher explains, "In our school the children speak 37 different languages. Their home and community environments vary greatly from each other. Most classes have children with vastly different needs. We needed to explore ways of reducing the real and perceived gap between them."

Pennoweth Primary School

Children at Pennoweth Primary School, Cornwall are no strangers to the camera. Filming in the classroom is part of everyday life for the pupils in the year 1/reception class. But they are not the subject of a new television documentary. The video cameras in the classroom are part of the school’s involvement in a three-year national research project looking at the effect of new teaching practices and learning methods to increase pupil moral, motivation and attainment. And in the second year, the practice of recording and reviewing lessons with the young children appears to already have had a positive effect on the pupils’ and teachers’ learning.

Roseland Community School

While the merits of single gender schools are debated by key educational thinkers, a leading education charity, the Campaign for Learning, has helped one school in Cornwall to put theory into practice, with very positive results. As part of the charity’s Learning to Learn in Schools action research project, the Roseland Community School has been investigating the effects of single gender classes for the teaching of English with three of their Year 9 classes. Only a year into the three-year programme and already key stage 3 results show a marked improvement in pupil’s writing. Boys have now caught up so that there are now almost equal numbers of boys and girls in what would have been the top two Year 10 English sets – never before achieved at Roseland. In fact, following discussion with the boys and girls who were due to enter mixed gender sets 1 and 2, the groups have been kept as single gender, thus adding another dimension to the research by including the GCSE course.

It was discovered at Roseland that boys had done less well than girls in English in their Key Stage 2 SATs; however, in their CAT scores they scored highly on verbal, quantitative and non-verbal reasoning skills, suggesting that many were underachieving. ‘It was this difference between the genders and the evidence of under achievement in boys, which led us to try single gender classes.’ explains Mandi Horwood, Head of English at Roseland. ‘Our objective was to try and help students to become more resourceful about their own learning by grouping them in single gender groups.’

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