All change! Moving on from statutory Key Stage 1 assessment

Published
06 October 2023

"The removal of the word ‘statutory’ releases schools from the legal requirements regarding assessing children’s attainment at the end of KS1."

 

We have often heard the old saying that ‘the only constant in life is change’, so it should come as no surprise that we are starting this academic year with big changes to Key Stage 1 assessment and how we will calculate progress over the primary phases.

The headline is that end of Key Stage 1 assessment is no longer statutory and that the Reception Baseline Assessment will take its place as the basis for cohort level primary progress calculations. (The first results we will see from these calculations will be in 2028 when the first RBA cohort reach the end of Key Stage 2. We currently have no details on how this calculation model will work.)

What this means for Year 2 teachers

The removal of the word ‘statutory’ releases schools from the legal requirements regarding assessing children’s attainment at the end of KS1. Schools will no longer have to:

  • assess pupils using SATs tests
  • form teacher assessment judgements using the teacher assessment frameworks (TAFs)
  • be externally moderated (unannounced Phonics Screening Check monitoring visits will still happen)
  • report an end of KS1 standard to parents (although, schools still must report a phonics result if a child took the PSC in Year 2)
  • report end of KS1 data to the local authority/HFL (there will not be any requests for optional/voluntary reporting of data from us).

So, what now?

Is this going to be a new dawn – a brave new world of assessment – or will we carry on pretty much the same as before just without the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) looming overhead? 

Well, if schools wanted do, it would be perfectly possible to do the latter. STA are going to continue to produce SATs tests in reading, maths and grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GPS). These will be for optional use. Paper copies of these tests will automatically be sent into schools (based on pupil numbers from the school census) unless schools opt not to receive any tests by declining them on the Primary Assessment Gateway. New tests will be created each year to the same specification as previously (this means that some schools will still need to be selected for the trialling of assessment materials) ensuring that the tests may (in STA’s own words), ‘continue to inform classroom practice and help schools understand where pupils need additional support as they transition into KS2’. There will also be the scaled score conversion released at the same time as usual. Guidance for administering the optional tests will also be updated and released this term. The recommendation will be that if schools choose to use the tests, they use them in May to ensure that the scaled score conversions are meaningful. Of course, schools don’t have to follow this recommendation at all.

In a similar vein the existing TAFs will remain available on GOV.UK for optional use to support teacher assessment judgements. They remain a ‘secure fit’ document and would be about looking at a child’s performance in the test (reading and maths) alongside the assessment evidence collected/seen in everyday classroom practice and independent work. 

Schools may choose to continue using the STA materials indefinitely or just for this year as they transition to something else. From an Assessment Team perspective, we are pretty agnostic about how a school chooses to proceed. There are clearly benefits to using the STA resources, not least that they are free and of a reliable standard (tests created professionally to ensure effectiveness and reduce bias etc). In the financial climate that schools find themselves in, it would seem prudent to use what is freely available rather than buying into other, often expensive, products. However, some schools may already subscribe to these sorts of products for other year-groups, and so expanding their use to Year 2 could make sense for internal tracking.

With regards to the TAFs, it may be that schools feel that they give a good summary of key curriculum milestones for the end of KS1 and that they are clearly understood by Y2 and 3 teachers, easing transition and creating a clear starting point for KS2. If this is the case, it really could make sense to stick with them at least until a similarly clear set of criteria can be shared in their place. This could also be useful for where schools would like to be able to moderate together and maintain a shared language, whether with HFL, or as part of more locally arranged clusters.  However, it may be that schools would prefer to develop their own assessment criteria, based on their own curriculum, or purchase commercially developed criteria.  Provided these are clear and appropriately ambitious, they could be just as useful as the TAFs. 

Of course, it would be possible to proceed without any specific assessment materials at all (STA tests or other products) – after all, there is no requirement to assess specifically at the end of KS1 and surely, by following the national curriculum, we would be covering what we ‘need’ to and then with effective formative assessment and responsive teaching, teachers could be keeping track of what is secure and where gaps are. Alongside effective cross-year moderation, transition could be supported perfectly adequately. 

Saying that, we know that most schools would want some form of summative assessment to enable a form of tracking of progress as a child moves from one year-group and key stage to another. This could of course be through good teacher assessment in any form. If a school was thinking of changing to a different method of assessment, we would encourage a consideration of some key points and principles: 

  • assessment should be meaningful – what assessment information is truly useful at the end of a key stage and what would support transition?
  • assessment activities or tasks should be relevant to the curriculum content that has been taught – especially worth bearing in mind if purchasing assessment materials – do they fit your curriculum?
  • assessment should be age-appropriate and sensitive to the needs of the child – relying on summative tests can be trickier with all, but especially young children, where teacher assessment based on a range of evidence gathered over time can create a more holistic picture
  • assessment data should be honest, accurate and reliable – particularly important given that this needs to be a picture of a child’s attainment and also areas of development as they move into Year 3
  • assessment data is more likely to be honest and reliable when it is used purely for informing next steps in learning or identifying key priorities, not for performance management of individuals.

When it comes to reporting to parents, ‘normal’ non-statutory year-group rules would apply. Schools would need to report general information about a child’s progress in each area of the national curriculum, but there would be no obligation to report a particular standard.  This certainly gives a nice opportunity for us to reflect on current reporting styles within our schools. Many schools go far beyond the legal requirements and include ‘standards’ (e.g., ‘EXS’, ‘ARE’, or other level-alternatives) for all year-groups and sometimes all subjects. In terms of what is useful for parents, I often wonder how much sense the labels/standards we share really make if parents aren’t familiar with what they mean, but this may be a thought possibly worth exploring in a future blog.

With the removal of any requirements regarding reporting data to the local authority and any external moderations, schools may feel that it could be tricky to validate or confirm their assessment judgements or compare their assessment outcomes to those of other schools/national picture. For schools where KS1 assessment formed a big part of their data, such as infant or first/lower schools, this may be felt particularly strongly, although based on conversations with all-through primary schools, it seems they too have an appetite for some way to reliably and comparatively assess this end of key stage. 

Given this, we will still be offering schools the option to book Year 2 moderations, where we can continue to use professional discussion to confirm assessment judgements. These could be in the summer term, as they have been previously, or indeed take a more formative form and take place earlier, e.g. in the spring term, to inform next steps in teaching. They could even be transition-focussed with Year 2 and 3 teachers involved in the dialogue. And of course, we will still be offering our Year 2 clusters, just as we will for all other year-groups (details can be found in our brochure).

We also have training available for using the optional materials from the Standards and Testing Agency that can be booked here, but also have plenty of support available for developing responsive teaching if schools wanted to shift away from focussing more on summative assessment. 

At this point it would be remiss of me to not mention that our fabulous Primary Maths and English teams have developed resources to support assessment for KS1 (and beyond). For maths, you may want to explore the Essentials diagnostic assessment resources or the end of KS1 maths assessment toolkit (available within PA+). For English, the KS1&2 Reading Toolkit is very useful indeed, as is the KS1&2 Writing Toolkit (also available within the PA+ subscription). 

If this has got all things assessment and moderation on your mind, it could be a good time for me to flag up the start of our familiar moderation cluster cycle. We are getting going with Year 6 clusters after the October half-term. There will be in-person sessions around the county as well as a couple of remote options.

Hopefully this blog has offered some useful information and thinking points for this shift in how we will be assessing Year 2. As usual, if you want to get in touch to chat or have any queries, please do – hfl.assessment@hfleducation.org

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The power of poetry in the primary classroom

Published
03 October 2023

"We might be tempted to delve straight into an analysis of a poem but try to resist this in favour of allowing children the time to consider their own reactions and emotive responses first."

 

In the recent ‘Poetry in Primary Schools’ 2023 report, published by the CLPE and Macmillan, based on a survey of nearly 500 teachers, “only 38% of those felt confident about planning units of work focussed on poetry. Many cited that they felt they didn’t have enough knowledge about poetry or experience of teaching it to do so. There was a significant link to a lack of training and development in this area of literacy” (CLPE/ Macmillan, 2023).  With National Poetry Day just around the corner, this blog aims to provide some support and advice for teachers to ease any anxiety and instead experience the joy of using poetry in the classroom.

Michael Rosen states in his excellent What is Poetry? (2016) that: “Poetry belongs to all of us; everyone can read poems, make up poems or share poems with others.”  We might tend to shy away from poetry if we feel it is too demanding or difficult for children to access, but removing any notion that a reaction to a poem is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can alleviate that concern.  One of the greatest things about writing poetry is that, depending on the form you are using, there doesn’t have to be any rules.  Of course, there are often a lot of clever things going on in a poem (see ‘poetic devices’ below, for example) but poetry is where we can encounter or write about the things that are important, fun, silly or difficult about life without worrying about the norm of writing conventions. For children, many of whom are very anxious about getting things ‘wrong’ in their reading and writing, this can be entirely freeing and empowering.

There are a few useful routes into enjoying and responding to poetry, some of which we shall highlight below.

Listening to, reading and re-reading poetry

Something to always bear in mind when reading any poem – it needs to be read aloud.  And once that has happened, it needs to be read again (and again, etc).  Sounds, rhythm and phrasing are especially important in poetry, so hearing any poem read aloud is likely to have been the intention of the poet.  Reading poems is a brilliant way to practise fluency – for example, through echo reading, paired or assisted reading and choral reading.  To quote Michael Rosen again, “Every time I’ve ever read a poem – even one of my own – reading it more than once starts to open doors for me.  It’s as if I walk into another room and find a bit more of it each time.  That’s because poems often say things in strange ways.  Reading them several times means that they become less strange” (2016, p. 85-86).

Building to a performance of the poem really helps to motivate children to read it aloud repeatedly.  Seeing poets performing poetry ‘can offer children a unique sense of feeling and engagement with a poem’ (CLPE, 2020, p. 45).  The CLPE’s website and the Children’s Poetry Archive have a wealth of videos and audio recordings that can be used in the classroom. 

We should be offering poetry within the classroom (see section below, ‘Choosing Poetry’) as something that children will choose to pick up and read for themselves.  We should aim to read poetry aloud regularly just to enjoy and hear the language at play, informally chatting about what we might think about it and our responses to it.  We might be tempted to delve straight into an analysis of a poem but try to resist this in favour of allowing children the time to consider their own reactions and emotive responses first.

There will also be occasions when you, as a teacher, will want to go into greater depth with reading poetry in a more structured way.  Here is an example of how you might do this (suitable for end of KS1 upwards), using Doug Lemov et al’s ‘Reading Reconsidered’ development of layered reading.  The old adage ‘the more you look, the more you find’ is entirely relevant to reading poetry.  Between every re-read, it is crucial to ask children to share their thoughts and generate discussion with the class about their understanding of the poem – based on what they know from a literal reading (e.g. What does that word mean?  What is happening here?) but also what they think the poem or the poet could be saying to us, as readers.  We can say to children, “I’m not sure – what do you think?” with genuine uncertainty and curiosity, as we start to probe a poem for potential hidden meanings or themes.  In this way, we can become used to asking the children questions that we, the teachers, do not know the answers to.

Layered reading of poetry – a Y3 example  

The Sound Collector © Roger McGough

 

Blurred text with annotations

 

Here is an example of a child’s annotations of the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough. You can watch Roger reading his poem online. The three boxes that the child has drawn (and ticked) on the page are used as a reminder that they needed to actively re-read the poem (not just skim or listen to it) and tick the box for each reading.

 

Repeated readingsKey questions/ promptsExplanation of activity

1st reading

(teacher reads aloud)

Discuss what you think is the mood of this poem…In this example, the teacher initially provided the children with a range of emojis to select from.  The class discussed which feeling/ mood the emojis could be representing and spoke about them within a specific context (e.g. “I remember a time when I felt ___ because___.  The poem reminds me of that feeling because ______ “) to help decide what the mood of the poem feels like to them and why.

2nd reading

(teacher/ children read aloud in pairs or groups)

Discuss what you think is the main message of this poem…

Before the children were accustomed to doing layered readings of poetry, the teacher would give the class some suggestions of messages for them to discuss and choose from after their second reading.  After a while, most children did not need this anymore and were confident to discuss and decide on what they thought the message of a poem might be, without prompting.

Many children will take a text very literally – here is an opportunity to delve into wider interpretations and develop inferential skills (but again, being curious about all children’s interpretations and not looking for one ‘correct’ answer).  You can see from the example, that this child took quite a literal explanation of the message of the poem but another child in the class thought that the main message was about ‘getting some bad news and then everything felt really weird, like the sound had gone’.  

3rd reading

(children read individually or in pairs)

Find a word/ phrase/ verse/ section that interests you the most….

or

Find a poetic device that the poet uses…

Upon the third reading, we can start to ask the children to give more of a personal response to the poem with some justification from the text or to start to think about, for example, the structure or poetic devices of the poem.  In this example, the children discussed a poetic device that they could spot and this child underlined the use of rhyme and how that helped with the rhythm and emphasis of the words when he was reading it aloud.

For support with teaching about poetic devices, Joseph Coelho’s MORERAPS poem is an incredibly helpful tool.

4th reading

(children read individually or in pairs)

Can you find any secret strings?

As Michael Rosen explains, this is one word or phrase that links to any other.  This can be any pattern, such as a repeating image or anything that connects to something else.

In this example, the child found secret strings between words that represented water as well as words or lines that repeated themselves.  The imagery of water led to some wonderful discussions amongst the class, led by the teacher, concerning how our hearing is muffled or dulled underwater and whether the poet intended to create this feeling or not.

 

The power of repeated reading here is in the magic that lies in the idea that we adjust our thinking about a text the more we read it.  What often starts as a very literal reading of a poem becomes a deeper discussion, where children are genuinely curious to know and understand how their peers may come to different interpretations of the same text.  This needs to be made explicit for children – we cannot read something in a vacuum; we bring to our reading the wealth of our own knowledge and experience, which are unique to us as individual readers.  

Choosing poetry:

As Charlotte Hacking states, “So how do you become a good teacher of poetry?  You read it, you respond to it, you even have a go at writing it.  But to want to do this, you have to find poetry that speaks to you, that excites you, that inspires you, and then you do the same for your children.” (‘The Power of a Rich Reading Classroom’, 2020, p.43) Children need to identify poetry as being accessible to them, interesting, fun and engaging and about the things that mean something to them.  With that in mind, children in primary school need to encounter a range of diverse poets and poetry – and here are some suggestions of poets and/or texts that we have enjoyed, plus useful resources.

Recommended poets and poetry texts (by no means an exhaustive list!):

 

A selection of contemporary poets….A (small) selection of text recommendations:A selection of classic poets…
Michael Rosen
Valerie Bloom
Joseph Coelho
Benjamin Zephaniah
Kate Wakeling
Matt Goodfellow
Adisa
Eloise Greenfield
James Berry
Coral Rumble
Brian Patten
Grace Nichols
Rachel Rooney
George the Poet
Karl Nova
Debra Bertulis
Brian Moses
Mandy Coe
Allan Ahlberg
James Carter
Roger McGough
Neal Zetter
Joshua Seigal
John Agard
A.F. Harrold
Carol Ann Duffy
 		‘The Final Year’ by Matt Goodfellow; illustrated by Joe Todd Stanton (verse novel, suitable for UKS2)
‘Love that Dog’ by Sharon Creech (verse novel, suitable for KS2)
‘Stars with Flaming Tails’ by Valerie Bloom
‘Rhythm and Poetry’ ‘by Karl Nova
‘Fairy Tales Gone Bad’ series by Joseph Coelho
‘Poems to Perform’ edited by Julia Donaldson
‘A Kid in My Class’ by Rachel Rooney; illustrated by Chris Riddell		Langston Hughes
Christina Rossetti
William Shakespeare
Chaucer
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Ted Hughes
William Blake
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Emily Dickinson
Wilfred Owen
Walter de la Mare
Spike Milligan
Edward Lear
Siegfried Sassoon
Robert Browning
 

 

Recommended websites to explore poetry further:

Poetry for Primary Schools — Just Imagine  (a brilliant range of suggested poetry texts from EYFS – Year 6 from Nikki Gamble)

Poetry | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (clpe.org.uk)

National Poetry Day - the UK’s biggest mass-participation celebration of poetry

Children's Poetry Archive - Listen to the world's best children's poetry read out loud.

Poetry By Heart

Poetry Prompts | BookTrust

References:

‘Poetry in Primary Schools’ 2023 Report: Poetry in Primary Schools 2023 | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (clpe.org.uk)

‘What is Poetry?  The Essential Guide to Reading & Writing Poems’ by Michael Rosen (2016: Walker Books)

‘The Power of a Rich Reading Classroom’ by the CLPE (2020: Corwin)

‘Reading Reconsidered:  A Practical Guide to Rigorous Literacy Instruction’ by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs & Erica Woolway (2016: Jossey-Bass)
 

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Voices from the classroom: Creswick Primary School – baby chicks hatching experience

Published
27 September 2023

"Ensuring we chose an ethical company for this experience was paramount for meeting our school values."

 

In Spring 2023, Creswick Primary’s nursery welcomed some new arrivals in class through the ‘Eggucation’ hatching experience. 

 

Chicks in incubator

 

The children were excited to arrive at school after the weekend to find seven very different looking eggs in a small incubator in the classroom. The awe and wonder as they tried to imagine what might be inside created an instant buzz in the classroom. We drew on the children’s prior knowledge about animals and life cycles to make predictions. The children made close observations in the coming days using a range of new scientific vocabulary to describe what they could see happening. 

Our hatching experience

We were lucky enough to see 6 of the 7 eggs hatches, each chick a different colour and size! This was a wonderful opportunity to talk about similarities and differences.

As the chicks grew, the children were able to help clean and care for them, putting into practise their knowledge of what an animal needs to survive and opened discussions around where and how they would live as they grew and left us.

Participating in a hatching experience opened up so many opportunities to build upon skills in other areas as well: the children drew detailed pictures of what they observed; explored mark making when writing labels; developed independence skills as they cleaned, fed and watered the chicks; and developed their personal, social and emotional skills as they cared and handled the chicks.

This engaging experience offered many opportunities to develop the children’s understanding of the world and gave them foundational knowledge to support them in both Understanding the World in Reception and Animals, including Humans in Year 1.

Our reluctant writers were writing and drawing, and our quieter children were talking! 

 

Children with chicks in cage

 

A learning opportunity for the whole school

Not only was the hatching experience great for understanding the world in Early Years but children from across the school visited the class and great links were made to science learning in many year groups. The opportunity to explore the different types of chicks we had hatched was a real-life opportunity for our Year 6 classes to explore inheritance; our Year 2 to experience life cycles in action and our Year 1 children to compare the baby chicks to their adult. 

Child holding chick

Child holding chick

Things to consider

When we first discussed the idea of taking part in a hatching experience as a team, some of the staff were reluctant and worried about how ethical the process was. Therefore, we did some research and chose a company that prides themselves on being an ethical school hatching service.

  1. All eggs came from a rare breed as part of a conservation programme.
  2. All eggs and the chicks remained property of the company and were returned to their farm at the end of the process.

  3. We shared this process with our parents, and it became a teaching point for the children, plus we had the pleasure of hatching some very unusual looking chicks and were very excited that one of our eggs was blue!
     

    Eggs in incubator, inside a cage

     

  4. We had to ensure there was a space for the chicks where the children could see them, but we also gave them the space and quiet they needed. We had them for two weeks and the chicks were taken home by a member of staff over the weekend, this was part of our agreement with the company.
  5. All resources (feed and bedding) were provided by the company but there was an expectation that we signed a contract to replace anything that might get damaged. The children were very respectful and listened carefully to rules and boundaries put in place to ensure the experience was successful for all involved.

In summary, it is definitely something we will be doing again! This experience not only enhanced our science curriculum but also allowed our children the opportunity to experience nature and see what they had been learning about in a real-life context.

For information on Health and safety related to hatching chicks, please see CLEAPSS guide P003 Incubating and hatching chicks.

Voices from the Classroom

Our new blog series, Voices from the Classroom, allows primary science teachers to share particularly effective practical experiences they have had with their classes. It’s a great way to showcase what your school is doing and written guidance and examples are available for those of you wishing to participate.

If this is something you would be interested in participating in, please e-mail Charlotte Jackson charlotte.jackson@hfleducation.org

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If we keep testing in Year 6, they’ll just get it... right?

Published
26 September 2023

"Teaching approaches to problem-solving is just as much a part of a strong curriculum as teaching the maths which problem solving calls on. In fact, it should be an integral part of the teaching and learning process."

 

By the time this blog hits your screen, there will be approximately 26 teaching weeks until this year’s KS2 SATs tests. If you are teaching maths daily, that’s around 130 maths lessons to cover all the new year 6 learning and to revisit, retrieve and secure the rest of the KS2 curriculum. When you look at the numbers, time is tight.

Yet this precious time can get consumed by testing regimes in a bid for children to familiarise themselves with the test in the hope that their scores will improve with each new test they do. In the recent Ofsted maths subject report, the summary of the research review relevant to assessment stated:

Most schools used end of key stage tests, or similar papers. The most positive approaches kept things ‘low key’ and avoided repeated summative testing to ‘show progress’

'Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report’ (Ofsted, July 2023)

As educators, we have likely all experienced the frustration of teaching something, feeling positive about the children ‘getting it’ to then be presented with blank faces when their understanding is tested or they are required to apply this knowledge in a problem solving context.

Teaching approaches to problem-solving is just as much a part of a strong curriculum as teaching the maths which problem solving calls on. In fact, it should be an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

According to Polya’s four-step model (1957), learners progress through four stages when faced with a problem: 

 

Table full of text analysing 4 stages to solve a problem

 

It is important that we model to the children the thought that gets us into a problem by slowing down the problem-solving approach and making the reasoning behind it explicit.

How can we teach the skills of reasoning and problem-solving?

Let’s consider how this may look in the classroom using a question from the 2023 key stage 2 mathematics Paper 3 (reasoning):

 

Maths graphic with text

 

First, pupils should be encouraged to look at the models and information they have been given.

By removing the question, we are encouraging them to identify what they already know and to ask questions of what they have been shown.

Not only will this support them with noticing the maths and making connections, but it will also serve as a useful tool when they progress to stage 4 in Polya’s model and are reflecting on their solution. 
 

Maths graphic with text

 

Next, we can start to refine the thinking of the learners by considering what vocabulary we would like them to be using when discussing the model provided. This signposts them to what they should begin to recognise.

The use of speaking frames supports the expectation of full sentences and analysis. At this point, you may ask pupils to consider what their peers have noticed, question it and build upon it: ‘If that’s true then…’.

By modelling to the children how we would filter the question and relate it to concepts, we begin to provide a tool for them to do this independently. 

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Once the children have had the opportunity to find the maths and consider what they know from the image, we can reveal some more information for them to explore.

This is where they can begin moving into stage two of Polya’s model. They know what they know and what they don’t and now they can consider how to use this to devise a plan.

At this stage, you could ask the children to consider:

  • How could we present this using a bar model?
  • What questions do you have?
  • What calculations could give you more information?
  • What could the final question be?

This scaffolds the problem solving process and enables the pupils to have a far richer discussion around the question than simply solving it under test conditions. At each point in this process, we are reducing the number of possibilities for the solution which again supports the final stage of reflection. 

Finally, we reach the big reveal.

 

Maths graphic with text

 

By the time we have shown them the problem in its entirity, children would have already unpicked what is required of them and feel more confident to tackle the calculation.

You may then simply ask them to solve the problem and could even extend their thinking by asking:

  • How would you change the question to make it more challenging?
  • Could you represent the maths using a concrete resource (e.g., Cuisenaire)?
  • Could you represent the problem using two different models?

What does teaching offer that testing doesn’t?

When used on a regular basis (in place of continual testing), this approach will serve to familiarise the children with KS2 SATs test structure but also develop and enhance all children’s problem-solving skills in a collaborative way. This could be incorporated into fluency sessions, at the beginning of maths lessons or intertwined with lessons where the content is relevant.

Teacher modelling and rich discussion between peers will enable children to make links across the curriculum, support them to notice where connections can be made to what they know and develop their ability to decide what they need to find out and how. We want this to become part of their natural response when applying their knowledge and skills within a problem-solving context.

Upcoming training for Year 6 teachers

For practical, face-to-face training in Reaching the expected standard in year 6 maths, join us at the Hertfordshire Development Centre in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on the 19th of October 2023. Use the link above to find out more. Booking is now open.

We can teach these problem-solving skills throughout children’s time at school

This strategy for exploring problems is useful not only in Year 6, but as a tool to support the development of these skills across key stage 1 and key stage 2.

By using images from real-life contexts, we can expose children to mathematical thinking and continue to build upon this as their schemata grow. 

Below, you will find an example of how the problem-solving approach could look in Year 1.

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

The HFL Education primary maths team have developed a set of these real-life reasoning slides. Look out for further information about them in our monthly newsletters.

Subscribe to receive these direct to your inbox: Join our Primary Subject Leaders’ mailing list

Find out more about the HFL Education Curriculum Impact Packages

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References

2023 Key Stage 2 mathematics paper 3: reasoning

Contains material developed by the Standards and Testing Agency for 2023 national curriculum assessments and licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Ofsted (2023) Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/subject-report-series-maths/coordinating-mathematical-success-the-mathematics-subject-report (Accessed: 19 September 2023)

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SENCOs – Start September strategically

Published
20 September 2023

“The SENCO has an important role to play in determining the strategic development of SEN policy and provision in the school” (SEND code of practice (2014) 6.87)"

 

September. Even more so than January, for those of us who work in education, the start of the autumn term is the fresh start, the time for plans and resolutions about how we want to work differently this year. The summer holidays have hopefully given some time and distance to the year that has passed, with a chance to reflect on our own professional WWWs and EBIs (‘what went wells’ and ‘even better ifs’). Now we’ve got past the initial busy first few days of term, it is a good time to reflect on plans for the coming year.

 

Balancing stones

 

When we talk to SENCOs, their (academic) new year resolutions often include the ambition to be more strategic – to find a way to move beyond completing the never-ending paperwork and to increase their focus on leading inclusion across the whole school. We hear, ‘I want to get into classrooms more’ or ‘I want the chance to do more staff training.’ 
SENCOs understand the value of time spent advising, supporting, and training their colleagues and recognise that consistently high-quality teaching is one of the greatest levers to ensure good outcomes for learners with SEND.

Remember, the SENCO’s role comes with strategic responsibilities as well as managing the day to day: 

The SENCO has an important role to play in determining the strategic development of SEN policy and provision in the school.

SEND code of practice (2014) 6.87

The recently published SEND and AP Improvement plan (March 2023) reinforces this expectation, describing the need for the SENCO role to be “whole-school, senior and strategic”

And yet, being strategic doesn’t happen automatically, and it can be hard to carve out time to focus on these high-impact activities. The reality is urgent tasks are visible, often important and every SENCO spends a significant part of every day reacting to demands on their time: a dysregulated child needs immediate support; a phone call interrupts your focus; staffing absence needs to be covered. 

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important.

Steven Covey

This is not something to feel guilty about…. it is something to be curious about and to reflect on. The good news is that most strategic tasks often don’t take that long once you have found time for them.  The 80-20 rule is the widely regarded principle that if you focus on the right priorities you can get 80% of the total impact from just investing 20% of your time in the right place. (What is the 80-20 rule, and how to apply it in your life | Tony Robbins).  How might this work for you? For example, a one-hour staff meeting training about the early identification of need may have a positive impact that eventually saves you time minimising the number of ad hoc conversations with teachers throughout the year. Or, taking some time to research and introduce the latest approaches to supporting self-regulation, will hopefully mean that, over time, there are fewer incidents of dysregulated behaviour that urgently need reacting to.

So, if your new year intention is to be more strategic this year, here are five top tips for how you can increase the likelihood of success. 

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.

Stephen R. Covey

1) Make a strategic plan: 

The first task is to be clear what leadership and strategic activities you want to complete. To maximise the impact, these need to be relevant to the context of your school, so a good starting point is to review your self- evaluation framework (such as the Hertfordshire SEND Benchmark and Planning tool) and your school’s development plan for the current priorities. Be selective, not comprehensive. From your settings’ priorities, decide only three or four strategic activities for the year that will add the most value.

The ‘Big Rocks’ concept might be useful here; the origin is unknown, but this story was made popular by Stephen Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Greg McKeown summarises it in his book, “Effortless”:  

A teacher picks up a large empty jar. She pours in some pebbles at the bottom. Then she tries to place some larger rocks on top. The problem is that they don’t fit.

The teacher then gets a new container of the same size. This time she puts the large rocks in first. Then the small pebbles in second. This time they fit. 

Greg McKeown, Effortless

 

Pale coloured round stones

 

In this metaphor, the big rocks represent the strategic monitoring and evaluation activities such as learning walks, training, policy review and development, pupil progress meetings, analysis of trends and patterns. The small pebbles are the operational tasks such as planned meetings and processes, referrals, administration. The sand is the day to day urgent and visible tasks that you need to react to.

Once you have chosen your ‘big rocks’ for the year, set SMART objectives for exactly how and when you are going to complete these and block out time for them in your diary. Research shows that scheduling when and where you will do something makes it much more likely that the task will get done. (How to Focus on What’s Important, Not Just What’s Urgent (hbr.org)). 

2) Find an accountability friend: sharing your plans increases the commitment to them

By publicly announcing an activity, for example that you will ‘launch a parent questionnaire in May 2024’ to your senior leadership team, to your teaching staff, or even to parents in a newsletter, there is less chance that this action will be ‘bumped’ by urgent firefighting tasks. 

Planning a joint activity with your SEN link governor is a great way to keep focus; whilst colleagues might interrupt you if working on your own to ask for help with an urgent issue, they are more likely to find another way if they can see you are in a scheduled meeting. To support you, we have provided templates for eleven strategic monitoring and evaluation activities you can complete alongside your SEN link governor in the Hertfordshire SEND toolkit. 

3) Do not try and do too much

If this way of working is new to you, then be realistic about what you can achieve within the time you have available. One good quality strategic monitoring or evaluation activity per half term might be an initially achievable aim. If you didn’t manage to fit in any learning walks last year, then it’s highly unlikely that you are going to be able to complete one a fortnight this year. So be kind to yourself and don’t set yourself up to fail.

4) Share the strategic tasks for SEND between SLT and middle leaders:

As Gary Aubin puts it, in ‘The Lone SENDCO’:

If every teacher is a teacher of SEND, then every leader must be a leader of SEND…. Go back to your priorities. If supporting students’ vocabulary or boosting reading is a priority for you as SENDCO, this will be more impactful if middle leaders can champion this in their area also.

Gary Aubin, The Lone SENDCO.

Can subject leaders include subject specific adaptations for learners with SEND in their CPD sessions for staff? Do all leaders review learners with SEND in their monitoring activities? Can whoever reviews attendance in your school provide you with the analysis for learners with SEND? Can your SEN link governor complete a website check for you?

Whenever you can work ‘with’ someone, you will also be adding that very important value– capacity building in others by sharing your experience, knowledge, and skills of SEND.

5) Identify the unimportant and non-urgent tasks that you keep doing

Find ways to either streamline these processes so they take less time, delegate them to someone else or give yourself strict time limits to complete them as quickly as possible. Also be aware of others who take your time; it can sometimes feel that your non-class time is swallowed up by whatever is needed; covering playground duty, putting up a stage, photocopying assessments. So be assertive enough to say the polite, “yes, but…” such as “I can help with lunch duty today, but that means I won’t be able to complete the attendance analysis I had planned.”  Once the requester is aware of the consequence of what they are asking you to do, often they will rethink and find a different option for solving their problem. 

 

"Important vs urgent" words on balancing scales

 

In modern life, it is easy to fall into the trap of being “too busy chasing cows to build a fence.” The sorts of scenarios you most want to avoid are fixing the same problems over and over or giving the same instructions repeatedly. To overcome a pattern of spending all day “chasing cows,” you can outsource, automate, batch small tasks, eliminate tasks, streamline your workflow, or create templates for recurring tasks. Look for situations in which you can make an investment of time once to set up a system that will save you time in the future.

Alice Boyes, How to Focus on What’s Important, Not Just What’s Urgent (hbr.org)

Hold tight to your ambition to be more strategic – to spend more time in classrooms and in improving outcomes for learners. You will need to be adaptable and resilient as challenges on your time throughout the year are inevitable, but your ability to respond, learn from failures, and regroup will steer you through. 

And finally… don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements and positive impact that result from your strategic leadership in the SENCO role. Good luck this year.
 

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Don't forget your full stops!

Published
19 September 2023

"This blog offers a range of strategies to help address the perennial problem of missing full stops."

 

I am ashamed to say that I have offered this futile advice to many children in many classes across many schools during my time in the classroom. On reflection, those words had very little impact. In reality, those who knew where the full stops should go, for the most part did not forget them; and those who had a shaky understanding of sentence structure and demarcation, continued to have a shaky understanding despite my timely advice. For those children, it was not so much a case of having forgotten where the full stop should go: the reality was that they did not really know where it should go in the first place.

Now as an English adviser, it is the barrier to age-expected writing that I encounter most frequently during my school visits. I often work with teachers who lament the children’s seemingly laissez faire approach to sentence demarcation. For KS2 teachers, the panic is often palpable: ‘How on earth will I get them to showcase their use of dashes, colons and semi-colons when they don’t seem to be able to master the full stop?’

Fixing full stops across KS2 training was born out of a desire to provide teachers with strategies to address this. The reasons for a child entering KS2 with insecure knowledge in this area can be manifold and is carefully unpicked in our training Securing full stops at KS1. Let’s focus for now on some proven strategies for getting children in lower KS2 back on track.

To support my explanation, I have organised the different techniques under headings, however, in truth, each of the strategies probably sits between and across several headings. Furthermore, the headings are not meant to draw teachers towards a preferred technique based on a notion of preferred learning style. Instead, they are to signify that the ability to understand sentence structure no doubt relies on an amalgamation of many input processes. By tapping into as many of these as possible, we may have greater success at securing this tricky bit of learning for as many children as possible. In the experience of the school where I supported, a combination of the techniques, planned over a unit of work and repeated little and often, seemed to work best.

‘Hearing the sentence’ techniques:

Alien sentences

Much like alien word games in KS1, where children are asked to spot alien words amongst a collection of real and made-up words, pupils are presented with sentences and non-sentences derived from the model text. First, they listen to the sentences/non-sentences and then sort them into the correct category whilst discussing their decision. This activity allows teachers to judge the children’s ability to succinctly express their understanding of what a sentence actually is, and to offer any additional technical language to help clarify their understanding.

Sentence match-up

Teachers take key single-clause sentences from a model text and cut them into two. The children match up the beginning of the sentence with the correct ending reading them aloud to check that they sound complete. This should be followed with a discussion about how they know which parts to put together, and whether they have spotted any patterns in the sentence structure. The beauty of this simple technique is that children have opportunities to re-read sentences many times over, all the while helping them to attune their ear to the sound of a sentence and draw their eye to the repetitive structure.

Sentence re-build

This technique is much like the Sentence Match-Up activity above. However in this version, the teacher takes several sentences and cuts them up into individual words (having removed the obvious clue of the capital letter at the start) and invites the children to re-build the words into the original sentences. This should lead to discussion and debate, while the children have yet more opportunities to express their understanding of sentence structure.

Stepping stone sentences

This is a powerful one! In this activity, children are asked to plan their sentences in advance of writing, but are scaffolded in doing so by physically stepping from one sentence to the next. Using visual ‘stepping stones’, the children are invited to rehearse their first sentence when stepping on the first stepping stone. When this sentence is shaped and secure, the child can step onto the next stepping stone and relay the next sentence that they intend to write, and so on. This works well modelled as a whole class activity and then as a small group activity for those children who needed a bit more securing. The children are then invited to write and to use a full stop to represent the ‘stepping stone’ from one sentence to the next. This activity proved powerful as the children had a visceral memory of ‘moving’ from one sentence to the next. Having engaged in physical movement from one sentence to the next, children are less likely to allow the sentences that they had rehearsed to merge into one another.

Self-regulation strategies:

Count and check

This technique has proven to be effective for some children who prove persistent in their neglect of full stops and who often miss out key words within their sentences. Before writing, children voice their sentence to the teacher who can help to shape/refine it as necessary. When the sentence is perfected, the child records the sentence using a sound button and then replays it, counting the number of words within it. They record this number in the margin before writing. After writing, they count to check that they had recorded the number of words in their original sentence, putting a tick above each word and ending with a full stop. It is time consuming, but it works. Time is well spent in Lower KS2 revisiting ‘hold a sentence’ strategies used within KS1. This may include building their sentence using counters to represent each word prior to writing to support with oral rehearsal and then self-regulation to ensure each counter has a corresponding written word. Dictation of single clause sentences using children’s known GPCs can also be used to support children with hearing, seeing, saying and then writing single clause sentences. By spending time on these early concepts we then know that the foundations are strong and we can then continue to build.

Underlying principle:

Transparent sentence structures

Underpinning all of the sentence-level work described above, teachers should ensure that - when the lesson objective relates to developing understanding of sentence structure - they adhere closely to the structures specified in their year group’s Programme of Study. Perhaps the children who struggle most with sentence structure have been pushed too hard, too fast, to write ever-increasingly long and complicated sentences, and by doing so, they may not have had enough opportunities to see the regular and predictable pattern of single and multi-clause sentences. To support, teachers can strip back the complexity of the sentences that they model and draw the children’s to attention to the predictable and repetitive way in which the sentences begin. When the children have been alerted to the common sentence starters, they are much more likely to be able to spot the boundaries between independent sentences.

Original Blog created by Penny Slater, additions by Amanda Webb.

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Measuring progress across Key Stage 2 – this year and beyond

Published
15 September 2023

"'Significantly’ does not mean the same as ‘very much’ and ‘significant’ does not necessarily mean ‘important'"

 

The technical details of the 2023 progress model for KS2 have now been published by the DfE. The model is broadly similar to the 2022 model, which I blogged about here. Every year there are minor adjustments to the ‘expected outcome’ for each Prior Attainment Group – these adjustments are down to slight changes in the national average outcomes each year. 

The more significant change affecting the model this year relates to changes in the way children were assessed at KS1 in 2019, compared to 2018. (The 2019 KS1 cohort are of course the children who have just completed KS2.) The differences at KS1 relate to how children were assessed if they were working below the ‘Working Towards’ standard. 2019 saw the introduction of the 'Pre Key Stage Standards’ (PK1 to PK4 at KS1) and the removal of P-scales from P5 to P8. In constructing a model for calculating progress from KS1 to KS2 in 2023, scores needed to be assigned to each of these pre-key stage standards so that a measure of ‘prior attainment’ could be produced.

The range of scores used then for converting KS1 attainment into a prior attainment score for calculating KS2 progress now looks like this:

 

GDS10 points
EXS8 points
WTS6 points
PK44 points
PK33.5 points
PK23 points
PK12.5 points

 

For children with SEND assessed using P-scales, the points range from 0.25 (P1i) to 1.75 (P4).
As per previous years’ models, the prior attainment score is found by converting a child’s teacher assessments in reading, writing and maths into scores, from the above table, and then combining those three scores into one score as follows:

  • calculate the average of their reading and writing scores, to give a score for English
  • calculate the average of this English score and their maths score

Based on this ‘weighted average’ score, children are then allocated into a Prior Attainment Group (PAG) and this forms the input measure of the KS2 progress model (in all subjects). 
The full details are available in the DfE’s technical guidance, but here are two simple examples:

Example 1 – a child who was assessed at EXS in all three subject areas at KS1

Their combined prior attainment score is 8 points.
In 2023, the national average scaled scores for children with a prior attainment score of 8 points were as follows:

 

ReadingWritingMaths
105.38102.02104.61

 

This means that, to achieve a better than average progress score, children with this prior attainment need to score above those figures. If they achieved a scaled score of, say, 107 in reading, their progress score would be +1.62 (the difference between 107 and 105.38). If they achieved a scaled score of 103, their progress score would be -2.38.

These average outcome figures are only marginally different from those in the 2022 model (effectively the same, to the nearest whole number).

Example 2 – a child who was assessed at GDS in all three subject areas at KS1

Their combined prior attainment score is 10 points.

In 2023, the national average scaled scores for children with a prior attainment score of 8 points were as follows:

 

ReadingWritingMaths
113.29108.87112.14

 

In this example, to achieve a positive progress score, the child would need to achieve a scaled score of at least 114 in reading or 113 in maths.  These are both 1 scaled score higher than was the case in the 2022 progress model.

Understanding the way this works for writing is a bit more complicated, as I discussed in the blog about the 2022 progress model. 

I have produced a free downloadable attainment & progress calculator tool (scroll to the bottom of this page to download it). Using this tool you can easily see for any pupil, by entering their KS1 attainment and either their raw scores from the KS2 tests or their scaled scores, what the ‘expectation’ (i.e. national average outcome) is in the 2023 model. The tool then calculates each pupil’s progress score and produces a cohort-level average progress score. It will also indicate whether this score would be deemed to be ‘statistically significant’ (more on this below).

A cautionary word about analysing this data

It is always best to start from the view that data can raise interesting questions and form the starting point of a discussion, rather than jump directly to conclusions from the data. Data tends to raise more questions than it answers. 

The methodology used to calculate a progress model inevitably carries a bit of ‘statistical noise’ or margins of error, as it is based on what has happened ‘on average’ for different groups of pupils, but no child actually behaves in an ‘average’ way. Every child is unique and complex, and there are bound to be day-to-day differences in how they perform in an assessment activity. So, there may be children whose progress scores come as a surprise – maybe they performed better than you might have expected on the day of the test, or maybe the opposite. At cohort-level though, these variations (some positive, some negative) would hopefully mainly cancel each other out. It is when you find that a large proportion of learners within a cohort appear to have underperformed that we might begin to notice this as a pattern and ask questions about what happened.

This is where statistical significance can help us. As the size of the cohort increases, variations from the norm become more meaningful and might become more worthy of exploration.

It is important to be clear about what is meant by ‘significant’ in this context.

‘Significantly’ does not mean the same as ‘very much’ and ‘significant’ does not necessarily mean ‘important’

In common parlance we might use ‘significantly’ to mean ‘very much’ or ‘noticeably’, e.g. “it is significantly hotter today than yesterday”. In the language of statistics, ‘significantly’ has a more precise meaning than that – it is better to think of it as expressing a degree of confidence in the data.  If a progress score is statistically significantly above or below the national average, what that means is that we can say with a high degree of confidence that progress in that school is above or below the average.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that the progress score is a lot better or a lot worse than average, just that it is better or worse and that we can be pretty confident in that assertion. (95% confident, to be precise – although even a 95% certainty does still mean we will be wrong 5% of the time.)

Likewise, significance is not the same as importance. If something in the data is deemed to be statistically significant, that might mean it is important but, as the song goes, ‘it ain’t necessarily so’. (And something could be important even without being statistically significant.) 

It is for the users of the data to interpret and decide (taking into account all their other contextual knowledge about a school and that particular cohort of children) whether something is important or meaningful. For example, we might observe a significant drop in results from 2022 to 2023 – but that drop might have been entirely expected based on the two cohorts being very different, so we wouldn’t necessarily be concluding that some radical action was required based on that one observation. 

So, what about next year and beyond?

This 2023 data will be the last time we see KS2 progress scores for a few years. Next year, the children completing Year 6 will be the children who finished Year 2 in Summer 2020, when statutory assessments were cancelled due to Covid. The same applies to those children who complete KS2 in 2025. So, in those years there will only by KS2 attainment data – no progress measures at all (as has been confirmed by the DfE).

2026 and 2027 will see a return to progress scores based on the sort of methodology that we currently have in place, i.e. based on children’s progress from KS1. But after that it all changes. The children currently in Year 2 will not be statutorily assessed at the end of KS1 and their KS1 attainment will not be collected by the DfE. This cohort of children all took part in the Reception Baseline in the academic year 2021/22, and that will be the input measure used to calculate their progress when they complete KS2 in 2028. (This is, of course, assuming there are no changes to national policy between now and then.)

It is perhaps worth taking this opportunity to remind readers that progress is always more than just a number. The published progress scores serve to give us an indication of how well pupils have made progress compared to the national picture, but these statistics are always a proxy for what really matters, which is the actual lived experience of children in that school: how well have they made progress through a well-thought-out curriculum, how securely have they acquired the knowledge and skills expected of them, to equip them for the next phase of education? Even in the years when we will have no published progress scores, these will still be crucial questions to explore. I wrote more on this in a previous blog, What do we mean by ‘progress’ and how can we reassure ourselves that pupils are making it?
 

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Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Secondary Science – do you have the next Einstein in your class?

Published
14 September 2023

"A classroom teacher looking over their new class registers for September may feel daunted by the prospect of meeting the individual needs of a large number of pupils with SEND in their lab. However, with the right challenge and support there might just be the next Einstein in the classroom!"

 

Question: What do Albert Einstein, Chris Packham, Jazmin Scarlett, and Sarah Rankin all have in common?

Answer: All of them were pupils with SEND who have gone on to have outstanding careers in science. 

  • Albert Einstein, Physicist, dyslexia
  • Chris Packham, Naturalist & tv presenter, autistic spectrum disorder
  • Jazmin Scarlett, volcanologist, juvenile arthritis
  • Sarah Rankin, Stem cell biologist, dyslexia & coordination disorder
  • For more information see: The Royal Society – Celebrating Scientists with disabilities

A classroom teacher looking over their new class registers for September may feel daunted by the prospect of meeting the individual needs of a large number of pupils with SEND in their lab. However, with the right challenge and support there might just be the next Einstein in the classroom!

The number of pupils identified with SEND has increased by 87,000 since 2022 in English schools. (ONS 22nd June 2023) In secondary schools alone this number has increased by almost 24,000. Numbers have increased for the 6th consecutive year and there are now over 1.5 million pupils identified with SEND ranging from the most significant and complex to comparatively minor in English schools. (Ofsted Research & Analysis: Supporting SEND). Most of these pupils attend mainstream schools and are entitled to a broad and balanced curriculum, which includes challenge, high expectations and builds aspirations. It is important to ensure that the curriculum is not made easier but that students receive the right adaptations to the curriculum and high-quality teaching so that they are able to access new learning.

How can we ensure that our delivery of the Science curriculum enables our pupils with SEND to be successful?

Helping students to break down science knowledge and tasks is a key step in supporting them to be successful scientists. Rob Butler (ASE) describes sensible strategies to manage cognitive load for pupils with SEND during practical work. Adam Boxer (RSC) talks about the benefits of the slow practical. Whilst recognising the need for individual risk assessment for pupils with SEND, (CLEAPSS guidance, G077) there are many similarities between the two approaches which suggests that strategies which improve outcomes for pupils with SEND will also improve outcomes for all pupils. Teachers should feel reassured that high quality teaching for students with SEND does not come at a cost to other students. 

When teachers and support staff use strategies and approaches which effectively meet the needs of pupils with SEND, they will also be meeting the individual needs of all pupils, thereby improving the quality of teaching and learning for everyone.

Alex Grady (Head of whole school SEND at Nasen)

The EEF (Education Endowment Foundation) has said “to a great extent, good teaching for pupils with SEND is good teaching for all.” They have identified five specific approaches, which are particularly well evidenced, as having a positive impact on pupils with SEND.

 

Illustration with text

 

Here we focus briefly on one aspect and discuss the importance of metacognition as an example. The EEF states that the use of ‘metacognitive strategies,’ which involves pupils thinking about their own learning, can be worth the equivalent of an additional +7 months’ progress when used well. 

A good starting point for developing metacognition in secondary science teaching is to focus on using the cyclical 'plan, monitor, evaluate and regulate' as a structure. Adapted here by John Spencer: Five ways to boost metacognition in the classroom. 
 

Illustration with text

 

This can be used in science lessons alongside complex calculations, practical activities, and evaluations, allowing students to be systematic and strategic in problem solving. This supports the learning of disciplinary knowledge and working scientifically, which is embedded throughout the secondary science curriculum. 
Supporting pupils with SEND to use the metacognition cycle in their approach to scientific tasks enables them to break down the process and reduce cognitive overload.

A very brief overview of questioning to support pupils in working through the cycle is shown here:
 

Stage of metacognition cycle

Suggested questions for pupils

What does this look like in a science lesson?

(Year 7 making an onion cell slide)

Assess

What do I need to accomplish this task?

What prior knowledge do I have?

What practical equipment does my group need?

Who will collect what?

How do I carry a microscope?

What is a cell?

How is a plant cell different to an animal cell?

What does a plant cell look like? Why will an onion cell have no chloroplasts even though it is a plant cell?

Strengths and weaknessesWhat new knowledge do I need to find out and what skills do I have or need to develop here?

How do I make the onion cell slide?

How do I use a microscope?

How do I focus a microscope?

Why do I need to use iodine on the slide?

How do I draw the cell from a microscope?

How do I calculate total magnification?

Plan the approach and apply the strategies

What do I need to do to get to the (successful) outcome?

How will I apply the skills that I have learnt?

Can I name the parts of a microscope?

Can I recognise and name the organelles in a plant and animal cell?

Extension activities:

Can I identify organelles in unfamiliar cells?

Next lesson: Can I use similar techniques to look at cheek cells?

Reflect

How am I doing along the way?

What would I have done differently?

Does my drawing look in proportion to what can be seen down the microscope?

Write an evaluation, how good was my slide?

At what magnification could I see the cells the best?

How could I improve my scientific drawing?

Did I calculate the magnification correctly?

 

Teachers explicitly modelling this thinking for the pupils and walking them through the cycle supports them in embedding the process and applying this questioning to further scientific tasks. Alongside this cycle the other EEF recommended strategies such as scaffolding and explicit instruction should take place. Watch out for future updates on this. 

This is just an example of how one of the recommended ‘five-a-day’ approach can be used within your science lessons to ensure that high-quality inclusive teaching is delivered. 

If you would like more information about, SEND, Secondary Science or the Secondary Science conference please contact:
Joanna.Conn@HfLeducation.org Secondary Science adviser
Anna.Mapley@HfLeducation.org Secondary Science adviser
Becky.Rothwell@HfLeducation.org SEND adviser.

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Making fluent and flexible calculators: why is additive reasoning important for children's success in multiplication?

Published
12 September 2023

"Too many children are trying to solve multiplication calculations with understanding and knowledge only from the counting phase. This is why some struggle to understand and accurately answer multiplication questions and find proportional reasoning, such as fractions, percentages, and ratio, ‘a bridge too far’."

 

In the first of this mini-series, (Making fluent and flexible calculators: why counting is not enough), I reflected on the importance of taking a deep look at how children solve simple addition and subtraction calculations. I considered why it wasn’t enough just to let them solve simple calculations through counting and the need to stop children from being caught in the counting trap.

This time, I have turned my attention to understanding why gaps in developing additive reasoning lead to difficulties later in children’s longer maths journey. I return to my crucial statement - 'Why getting the calculation correct is not enough’. But this time, I consider why we must blatantly pay attention to additive reasoning. If children in your class struggle with multiplication, division, fractions and/or percentages, they may not have already secured the strong foundations in additive reasoning that they need.

Shortly after publishing the first blog in this mini-series, Ofsted released ‘Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report’ (July 2023). As one of the main findings for primary schools, they highlighted:

“Pupils’ gaps in knowledge tend to be centred around, but not limited to, addition facts in younger year groups. This was for some, but not all, pupils. These early gaps in knowledge may not become apparent until a significant amount of time has elapsed. This is because it is possible, in the medium term, for pupils to understand what is being taught and then keep up with extra classroom support and slower calculation. However, this is at the expense of the later ability to access the curriculum.”

Additive reasoning is foundational to multiplicative reasoning

I have long questioned why some children seem able to move into KS2 maths easily and others struggle, particularly with multiplication.

Why am I talking about multiplicative reasoning when Making Fluent and Flexible Calculators explores, develops, and enhances children’s ability to solve addition and subtraction calculations?

It is because additive reasoning forms the foundations for developing multiplicative reasoning (see Figure 1 below). During the course of the project, we have repeatedly seen large proportions of pupils using counting to solve simple addition/subtraction calculations. They have yet to develop trust in a range of strategies and haven't developed the habit of looking for ways to simplify the calculations. Instead, they revert to counting or, slightly better, depend on a single strategy (for a more detailed discussion on the strategies children spontaneously use in the project, see the first blog in this series)

 

Different coloured circles with text within each one leading into one another

Figure 1: Reasoning progression phases from EYFS to KS4 and beyond

 

Each phase is progressive, building understanding and knowledge vital for success in the next phase. To be blunt, if a child doesn't secure the required learning in the additive phase, they will struggle with the multiplicative.

Too many children are trying to solve multiplication calculations with understanding and knowledge only from the counting phase. This is why some struggle to understand and accurately answer multiplication questions and find proportional reasoning, such as fractions, percentages, and ratio, ‘a bridge too far’.

To illustrate this, consider what happens when children solve 9 x 6 when this fact is not fluently recalled:

Child A

 

Table full of text and maths

 

Child A is in the counting phase, so they solve the calculation by drawing an array; nine rows with 6 dots in each. Then they count each dot, starting from 1 (count all) or, slightly better, from 6 (count on).

Child B

 

Table full of text and maths

 

Child B is in the additive phase and solves the calculation through skip counting. They now recognise that there are 9 groups, and each group is equal to 6. They no longer see each item (dot), but rather 9 repeated equal units of 6. They solve through applying repeated addition, so even though they are solving a multiplication calculation, they are employing strategies from either the counting or additive phase.

Child C

 

Table full of text and maths

 

Child C’s solution is representative of the multiplicative phase. They have developed an understanding of the two different dimensions of multiplication - the number of groups and the size of groups. They can flexibly manipulate both dimensions to break the multiplication into groups to which they fluently know the answers. They must employ skills from both the multiplicative and additive phases to succeed at this stage.

In addition to the macro-progression of counting to additive to multiplicative, each phase has a micro-progression

Children start with unitary counting; counting all the dots, one to one. This strategy is not time efficient and has massive potential for error. They do not see the array as representative of multiplication or the relationships between two differing dimensions (number of groups/size of group) but rather just a series of single dots. The child’s ability to estimate if their answer is correct is minimal.

Rhythmic counting is how many children first solve multiplication calculations when they start to recognise groups; they emphasise the number pattern but are still counting in ones. When counting in sixes, they would whisper 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and shout 6, whisper 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, shout 12 and so on. They recognise the repeated addition structure but still employ skills from the counting phase.

As children get more confident with rhythmic counting, they can often skip count some of the patterns but then revert to rhythmic counting to complete the calculation. This is called ‘hybrid counting’. For example, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30…whispering 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, call out 36; whispering 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, call out 42, etc.

The cognitive load is huge when using this method as children must keep track of numerous pieces of information all at once, including:
      a)    the number of groups of 6 that they have counted
      b)    which number they are currently on
      c)    which number comes next in the number sequence (particularly challenging if it crosses a decade boundary)
      d)    how many more they must count on to complete the next group of 6.

However, if children are confident in additive reasoning, then they can start to simplify the repeated addition calculation and compact the amount of information they are processing, releasing cognitive space. A child’s thinking might be:
I know 5 x 6 is 30, so 30 + 6 = 36, 36 + 6 = 42, 42 + 6 = 48, 48 + 6 = 54.

During this intermediate stage, children use additive reasoning strategies to solve the sub-calculations required to multiply 9 and 6:
 

Table full of maths and text

 

Ability to use base facts 

In the first blog in this series, I discussed the importance of children developing mental addition and subtraction strategies to prevent them from being stuck in the counting trap.

But the ‘Fluent and Flexible’ project has also highlighted another issue. Thompson (1994) highlighted that children must understand that mathematics is about “working with relationships”.

The entry data from the project shows that many of the children aren't spontaneously using their base facts to help with other calculations (the National Curriculum refers to them as ‘derived facts’). Children do not see relationships between calculations and are not using what they already know.

For example, suppose pupils know that 9 + 4 is 13. It is then anticipated that they would use this information flexibly to solve other related calculations, such as 90 + 40, 19 + 14 and 13 - 9, but we found that many children involved in the project weren’t. Instead, they see all calculations in isolation. They aren’t in the habit of anticipating and seeking ways to make the calculations easier using known facts.

Not seeing associations between calculations has implications for their longer journey in maths. Children need to build the habit of seeking patterns and seeking ways to simplify calculations in preparation, not just for more complex additive calculations, but also multiplication (if I know 3 x 4 is 12, then 30 x 40 is 120, 13 x 4 is 10 x 4 + 3 x 4). Children need explicit instruction, time, and practice to seek and trust relationships.

Moving beyond known multiplication facts

The ability to use additive strategies is much more than just being more efficient within the times tables facts. As they progress through the curriculum, children will have to use additive reasoning to solve calculations beyond their known multiplication fact range.

Additive reasoning impacts multiplication success

To summarise, additive reasoning develops this kind of understanding and knowledge:
      a)    numbers can be broken into smaller numbers (composite units/part-whole models)
      b)    how to use base facts to seek derived facts – going beyond memorised facts
      c)    to select, with reasons, from a range of strategies to simplify the calculation.

In the 2023 Key Stage 2 mathematics paper 1: arithmetic, there were 15 questions that explicitly involved multiplication or division (excluding those that contained fractions). Of these, at least 9 can be simplified and solved using additive thinking strategies.

Examples include:

 

Table full of maths and text

 

Table full of maths and text

 

Table full of maths and text

 

Table full of maths and text

 

That there are many ways to solve each calculation is critical here. It is up to the children to decide. They have the agency so select the option which exploits their strengths.

We need to explicitly help them establish the habit of seeking patterns, build their understanding and trust in additive reasoning so that they will continue to look for relationships within and between numbers. This will help them to learn to seek out ways to simplify calculations rather than mechanically applying the same strategy over and over again.

This foundational flexibility enables them to build more sophisticated ways of solving calculations, preparing them to be successful with more complex calculations.

It is vitally important that we aren’t satisfied with children getting simple addition and subtraction calculations correct, but that we overtly focus on the strategies and the understanding that the child is applying. We should constantly question ‘are they building foundations to enable success for the next stage of their maths journey?’

Is this a key focus in your school?  

The HFL Education Primary Maths team can work with you in school to develop mathematical fluency through The Fluency Package or the teaching and learning of multiplication facts through The Multiplication Package.


Find out more about the Making Fluent and Flexible Calculators

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Find out more about the HFL Education Curriculum Impact Packages

References

2023 Key Stage 2 mathematics paper 1: arithmetic
Contains material developed by the Standards and Testing Agency for 2023 national curriculum assessments and licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Ofsted (2023) Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/subject-report-series-maths/coordinating-mathematical-success-the-mathematics-subject-report 
(Accessed: 31 August 2023)

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HFL Education and Hon. Stuart Lawrence join forces to improve reading standards

Published
07 June 2023

In the UK last year, 172,000 children in year 6 (26% of pupils) did not meet the national reading expectations.  

HFL Education and Hon. Stuart Lawrence are thrilled to join forces with the goal to improve reading standards via the Reading Fluency Project. 

Commenting on the autumn term project, Stuart Lawrence said,  

“I’m delighted to be involved in this amazing initiative and I cannot wait to see the impact it has for young people nationally.”

The KS2 reading fluency project is now in its 18th round and has an impressive average outcome of 2 years and 3 months progress in reading comprehension in just 8 weeks. 

Find out more about the Key Stage 2 (KS2) Reading Fluency project and the Hon. Stuart Lawrence

 

Stuart Lawrence

 

About the Reading Fluency project 

The KS2 Reading Fluency Project is designed to swiftly improve reading fluency and comprehension of those pupils who have entered Year 5 and 6 working below the expected standard in reading. The project strategies have been trialled extensively and have had a powerful effect on reading ability for the vast majority of pupils, in turn supporting them to develop more positive views about reading. 

Over the eight-week period, target pupils receive two 20 minutes teacher-led sessions each week, using the key strategies of modelled expert reading and echo reading, alongside a challenging text selection. 

Reading Fluency Project outcomes

The exceptional progress that can be achieved in just 8 weeks, is evident in this video of a year 2 pupil, from English Martyrs' Catholic Primary School, reading before and after the school’s involvement in the project.  

Pupils have a more positive relationship with books; are more enthusiastic, confident readers with an increased understanding and engagement with texts. 

Find out more about the Key Stage 2 (KS2) Reading Fluency Project

If you’re interested in finding out more about the project please email reading.fluency@hfleducation.org or call 07775 028239

With thanks to PGIM, the first 50 schools that sign up to the project will be gifted a copy of Stuart Lawrence’s book. 

“The publication of his first book for children, Silence is Not an Option: You Can Impact the World for Change, is intended to empower all children irrespective of skin colour to demand a better society… Stephen Lawrence’s brightness runs throughout the pages, along with Stuart’s love for his brother” – Louise Carpenter, The Times Magazine

“We all want to be successful in life and to be remembered for our achievements – but how can we do that, when the world can seem so big and sometimes scary?”–Stuart Lawrence 

Silence is not an option: Stuart Lawrence - book cover

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