Attainment Gap Is Closing Across All Early Years Settings, Schools And Colleges In England
Achievement For All’s 2015-2016 Impact Report shows promising signs for equality in education
- by Teachwire
The attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers stands at about 21% in preschool, 13% by the end of primary and 27% by KS4. For children with SEND it’s even bigger; 53% at age 11, and 47% at 14-16 years.
But Achievement for All’s impact report from the last 12 shows signs of improvement across the board.
Key highlights from the report indicate this positive educational growth including: • The attainment gap is closing in Achievement for All early years settings, schools and colleges across England • Absenteeism reduced and participation increased in target groups • 75% of targeted pupils surveyed reported increased confidence in their own ability to progress at school • There were 933,625 beneficiaries in 12 months including leaders and teachers, children and young people, parents and carers, and education support professionals
Here’s how some of Achievement for All’s programmes have made an impact in 2015-16:
The Schools Programme Working with schools to reduce the attainment gap 100,000 children and young people directly benefited (1,000,000 indirectly)
Achieving Early Improving outcomes for underachieving children Rather than a 5-10 minute talk with parents/carers, the ‘Taking Time for Talk’ conversation is a 30-60 strategic approach to engagement. The report revealed an increase in parent and carer confidence in supporting their child’s learning.
One Million Minutes Primary school reading challenge 33,600 primaries in England took part, aiming to read for a total of 1m minutes, and managed to reach an incredible 3.9m minutes. 2017 will see the launch of Ten Million Minutes.
Get On Read On Achievement for All is part of the Get On Read On coalition, which aims to see every child reading well by the age of 11 Case studies • An infant and nursery school in Hertfordshire went from ‘requires improvement’ to good, and saw attainment in reading, writing and maths all improve on average by just over 6 points. • A Hatfield primary has seen some children who were rarely turning up at school now achieving 99% attendance. Parental engagement went from a score of 1 out 10, to 8 out of 10. • Out of 19 targeted students in an Essex high school, 18 have continued in full-time education, the other is in full-time employment. No students have become NEET.
Read the full report here.
