THE ATHENA EiCAZ INTERVENTION PROGRAMME

Summary - These case studies illustrate Athena's, highly developed and very successful literacy and numeracy intervention programmes. Through such things as video conferencing, innovative use of ICT programmes and whiteboards, a high degree of targeted support can be achieved with huge impact on pupil attainment.     

In order to set these case studies in context it is important to provide an overview of the structure and content of ATHENA’S intervention programme. Our intervention programme provides targeted support in numeracy and literacy for pupils who are a borderline Level 4 when they enter Year 6. We employ the use of innovative ICT programmes as well as an interactive whiteboard to support our programme of study. Video conferencing also forms a regular aspect of the children’s intervention and they have participated in activities both nationally and internationally.

We identify the children who are to be targeted through in-depth data analysis of QCA tests, learning style tests and self esteem findings at the end of Year 5.
Children then attend literacy and numeracy sessions at the ATHENA Learning Resource Centre based in Harborne Hill School up until their SATS in the Summer Term.

The numeracy and literacy sessions are held on alternate weeks to ensure that a block of substantial time can be devoted to teaching the learning objective successfully and in depth, this also allows opportunities for extended work. Below is a brief outline of the structure of the programme of intervention.

NUMERACY

• 3/4 objectives taught each week.
• Objectives are linked to the NNS where appropriate.
• Further focussed objectives are taken from the data collation and analysis of QCA Year 5 tests, which identifies areas of mathematical weakness for each child.

Assessment
• Termly assessments are given on objectives taught through out that term.
• Children also take a final spring assessment, which correlates with the Year 5 QCA questions to allow a direct comparison of progress.

LITERACY

• ATHENA’S targeted focus is writing.
• Children focus on a different writing style each week (taken from the 9
     genres outlined in Y6 NLS).
• The format of lessons allows for an immediate ‘cold assessment’ followed by teacher input, group discussions and both individual and paired activities. The aim of the sessions is to provide children with simple frameworks which will help to structure their writing and give them a checklist against which they can assess their own work, copies of these are also given to the class teachers to use with the rest of the class. The sessions end with a final review of the objectives and children are required to produce another piece of writing, this time incorporating as many of the key features of the studied genre as they can.
Assessment
• This tends to be very immediate-on a before and after lesson basis- due to the nature of the time span between sessions.
• Results are also recorded on an EXCEL spreadsheet and appropriate notes about the children’s understanding are made.
• Baseline assessment= Y5 QCA SATS compared to Y6 QCA SATS.

One other vital form of assessment is the children’s self-assessment. This is completed at the end of every session and children are required to recall the learning objectives, state any new facts they may have learned and highlight any particular elements of the lesson that they found the most enjoyable and why.

LITERACY CASE STUDY

Background Information

School: ‘Mary’ attended an inner city school in Birmingham, which had recently come out of special measures. It was situated in an extremely deprived area where unemployment and crime rates were very high. The school had a high number of pupils from ethnic minorities and a significant turnover rate of pupils, this resulted in many children leaving and joining at various times of the year.

Class: The class had 30 pupils, 50% of whom were working at Level 3 in writing at the start of Year Six, 30% who were below Level 3 and 20% who were on the special needs register and classed as ‘working towards level 1’.
The class teacher had been on long-term sick leave from the second week of the Autumn term which resulted in the class having several different supply teachers before finding a permanent replacement just before Christmas.

Child(‘Mary’): My involvement with ‘Mary’ had been fairly minimal up until the very end of her time in Year 5 but with the help of QCA test results, teacher assessments and comments, my own observations, self esteem and learning style assessments, I was able to form a very clear picture of this child.

She was an independent learner who preferred to work alone. ‘Mary’ was reluctant to participate in whole class or group discussions and did not volunteer herself to answer questions. She was a very conscientious and meticulous pupil in terms of presentation and detail in her work but found it difficult to complete a task within a given time.
Her self-esteem data indicated that she had low self esteem which would explain to some degree her reluctance to participate voluntarily and her attention to detail.

‘Mary’ was not happy to hand in work if she perceived it to be ‘sub standard’, either in terms of content or presentation, this would appear to provide an explanation for the amount of time she spent trying to complete her tasks. This ‘perfectionist’ nature hindered her understanding of the greater picture within her writing. It appeared that she could not continue on to the next element of a given task if she had not- in her eyes- completed the activity at hand successfully.

The learning style test identified ‘Mary’ as having elements of being a visual and auditory learner. She processed information through listening and ‘seeing’. One of the features of an auditory learner is that they prefer to get information by listening and they do not always process information if it is written. This is something that ‘Mary’ had difficulty with. In addition to this she displayed aspects of being a visual learner, she liked to see information displayed in tables, charts or flow diagrams. ‘Mary’ responded to information that had been ‘chunked’ or divided up into manageable separate pieces.
‘Mary’ achieved a Level 3B in her QCA Year 5 Writing test. She was considered to be of middling ability within the class. Her teacher indicated that ‘Mary’  was a very capable girl but had difficulty following instructions and keeping up with the pace of a lesson.  She would still be in the process of completing an activity set at the beginning of the lesson while the rest of the group had moved on to the next stage, her reluctance to reveal this to the teacher until the end of the lesson was having a two fold effect. ‘Mary’ was becoming increasingly de- motivated and she was failing to achieve the lesson objectives.

To summarize, ‘Mary’ was working at a Level 3B in her writing at the beginning of her intervention programme. She was a combination of an auditory and visual learner with low self-esteem. Equipped with this and other anecdotal information, I planned a programme of study for ‘Mary’.

Programme of Intervention

Having identified the key areas that seemed to pose a barrier to ‘Mary’s’ learning I set about planning her intervention programme.

I employed a variety of teaching strategies, ensuring that I catered for ‘Mary’s’ preferred learning styles. In doing so my hope was that through out the sessions she would process information more accurately and speedily and that this in turn would have a knock on effect on her self esteem- no longer would she feel that she was lagging behind. My hope was that an improvement in self-esteem and confidence within the subject would encourage more questioning and a greater willingness to understand the skills, techniques and features of the genres studied in order to secure a Level 4 in her writing SATS.

Low Self Esteem

‘Mary’ was a child who set high expectations for herself and was easily disheartened and de-motivated when she felt that she had not achieved them. In order to redress this balance and make her feel as though she had actually made progress she was awarded a certificate and small prize at the end of term in recognition of her determination and positive attitude to learning. This relatively small gesture had a huge impact on ‘Mary’s ‘ self image and she immediately took on a whole different persona, one where she felt in control of her learning. She was willing to volunteer her opinions more often in whole class situations as well as readily demonstrating her understanding on the whiteboard. Positive statements made throughout each lesson directly to ‘Mary’ and written comments on her work relating to criteria she had fulfilled in the task had preceded this recognition of her success and progress. It was amazing to see how appraisal of her achievements-no matter how small-eventually allowed ‘Mary’ to at least begin to access and demonstrate her potential learning capacity.

Preferred Learning Styles

I had identified ‘Mary’ as a visual and auditory learner. In order for her to maximise her learning during her time at Athena I incorporated elements of these learning styles in to her activities and tasks.
Auditory learners find it difficult to internalize written instructions therefore I ensured that I spent time with ‘Mary’ before she began each activity so that the instructions could be repeated orally. We often spent time talking through the tasks and this gave ‘Mary ‘ an opportunity to address any issues she may have had, this in turn allowed her to clarify any ‘blocks’ she may have perceived to be in the task and ultimately resulted in her finishing the task on time and to a high standard.  This was done in a subtle, comfortable environment where questioning, revisiting and repetition were encouraged.

Another strategy that I employed with ‘Mary’ was to encourage her to explain to me what the task demanded of her, as she did so she actually consolidated her own understanding of it. ‘Mary’ also displayed aspects of being a visual learner, which meant that she liked to ‘see’ things. Each week she was given a poster with the key features of a writing genre in bullet point form, these were very simple and included some associated graphics to emphasize the links. (See Poster and Framework Section). The frameworks that were used for her to plan her writing on were also very visual. They were clearly sectioned with simple key words to denote content and they provided a simple, memorable skeleton from which to hang her writing (See Poster and Framework section). These frameworks appealed to ‘Mary’s need to ‘chunk’ and compartmentalize information into manageable pieces. When developing her short story writing skills I compiled a booklet that was predominantly visual with supporting commentary, however I also explained the diagrams orally to ‘Mary’ to ensure a full understanding of the content. This double-sided approach seemed to eradicate the obstacles that were initially stopping her from approaching her work with a positive ‘can do’ mentality.

Summary

In conclusion the approach that I took with ‘Mary’ by not focusing solely on targeting her writing skills and looking at the child as a whole had amazing results. In her writing assessments, which I marked as before and after intervention, she showed steady progress through out the year (See progress graphs below). By the summer term not only did we have a confident child who managed to secure a Level 5 in her writing, we also had a child who was now fully aware of her potential in writing. This increase in confidence and raised self-esteem must be responsible at some level for her writing SAT score. She had exceeded even her own expectations and that could only have left ‘Mary’ feeling exceptionally proud of herself.

NUMERACY CASE STUDY

Background Information

School: ‘Jamie’ attended an inner city Birmingham school situated in an area with high rates of unemployment and a transient population. The schools intake was from the surrounding predominantly white working class community and it had a high percentage of free school dinners further reflecting it’s socio-economic status.

Class: The class had a total of 30 pupils. A high proportion of the class was extremely disruptive with behaviour issues and this proved to interfere with the daily routines of the rest of the class. The class teacher’s time was often taken up with resolving disagreements and controlling outbursts during lessons. This was by no means an ‘easy’ class.

Child: My first encounter with Jamie’ was at the end of Year 5. I met him and the rest of my target group for the last few weeks of the summer term in order to become a familiar figure before September. I spent time observing’ Jamie’ in class, group and independent learning situations and was able to form a well-rounded picture of him. Again, I drew on information from QCA Year 5 tests, self esteem and preferred learning styles data.
‘Jamie’ was a hard working, quietly confident child who had a good work ethic. He did not always contribute to class discussions but carefully followed what was being said, he was happy to ask for help and reinforcement when things were not clear. He was a child who thrived on testing himself and he saw this as an opportunity to prove his understanding and grasp of mathematical concepts to himself. This attitude and approach to his work is clearly reflected in his self-esteem assessment data that showed ‘Jamie’ to have middling self-esteem (the assessment places children on a scale ranging from low, then middling to high self- esteem).

‘Jamie’s’ preferred learning style was identified as visual with traces of kinaesthetic. As previously mentioned a visual learner prefers to ‘see’ things set out in diagrams or tables, they also respond well to written directions and instructions. ‘Jamie’ liked to organise information into charts, diagrams accompanied by doodles and he used to compartmentalise facts into a personalised order. He would also take notes during or after a lesson so that he could clarify in his own words what he had learned, this seemed to help imbed this information.

The kinaesthetic aspect of ‘Jamie’s’ learning manifested itself in his fondness to write out facts that he had to learn several times, it appeared that the more he wrote them out, the more he understood them.
These types of learners prefer hands on learning and find physical activity aids learning, having said this ‘Jamie’ only demonstrated elements of this style. When he was presented with information in a grid he would often trace it with his finger whilst reading it, this again aids the internalisation of facts.

‘Jamie’ achieved a Level 3C in his QCA Year 5 maths test. After an analysis of his paper using the Athena data collation strategy, I identified the specific areas of weakness in his understanding. The analysis allowed me to pin point exactly what aspect of a calculation, strategy or concept ‘Jamie’ was having difficulty with. From this it was fairly straightforward to see where the blocks in his understanding were and how subsequently this was having an effect on his attainment. It appeared to me that ‘Jamie’ was indeed a bright, capable child who somehow could not grasp certain aspects of mathematical concepts and that this was holding him back. For example, ‘Jamie’ found it difficult to complete multiplication of HTU by TU. It became apparent that he was not comfortable with the long multiplication method and due to his poor knowledge of place value he had not attempted to use an alternative strategy like the grid method, which would have been ideal for him especially as he was a visual learner. I had no doubt that if I incorporated visual and kinaesthetic teaching in to his programme of intervention he would eventually get over some of his blocks which would in turn open the flood gates on his understanding of numeracy.

Programme of Intervention

With the knowledge of ‘Jamie’s’ preferred learning styles-which was very powerful information in this case- I could easily plan work to accommodate these due, primarily, to the nature of the subject. My numeracy lessons were well paced and I used a variety of teaching tools, ranging from paper, flipcharts, and computers to the interactive whiteboard. I tried to cater for all three different learning styles and because the activities were short and varied it meant that this was possible to do.

Self Esteem

Although ‘Jamie’s’ self esteem was not a cause for concern there were strategies that I employed to boost his self-belief even further. As I mentioned previously he enjoyed setting himself goals and proving to himself that he could achieve them, so I gave him a target card to take home with individual targets on it, these were to be tested at the end of the half term. ‘Jamie’ continuously tested himself and asked for extra work to take home so that he could consolidate his understanding. After the assessment had taken place he firmly took on board what he had to concentrate on, ‘Jamie’ was becoming increasingly responsible for his own learning and was using his shortcomings to help achieve more. He did successfully achieve all of his targets and it was wonderful to see his confidence grow, especially with the knowledge that he had made a concerted effort to raise his attainment.

Preferred Learning Styles

This is the area that I feel had the most significant impact on removing the blocks to ‘Jamie’s’ learning. As I have said before,’ Jamie’ was a capable boy who had gaps in his basic numeracy knowledge that was preventing him from moving on, by recognising his preferred learning styles and developing activities to accommodate these I saw an improvement in his understanding and attainment. I would always provide him with opportunities to come up to the interactive whiteboard and manipulate numbers, he clearly enjoyed doing this as he could see what he was doing and as a visual/kinaesthetic learner this appealed to both his learning styles. ‘Jamie’ worked well if information was ordered in tables or charts and I would often ask him to explain a process to me by using the visual prompts on the whiteboard. This was the case when we were trying to overcome his block with long multiplication when using the formal written method. I asked ‘Jamie ‘ to explain step by step how to do the grid method, not only did he have to think about the different stages (which would appeal to his need to compartmentalise) but he was using a grid to place the information in. This was also the case with his approach to solving word problems. I designed a poster that clearly defined the steps-in chronological order-towards solving a written problem, again this complimented both the need for something visual and structured. Asking ‘Jamie’ to explain strategies to me was a regular occurrence and one from which I think he gained a great deal.

Summary

Through out his intervention programme ‘Jamie’ had made incredible gains in his numeracy attainment. By the end of Year Six he had gone from working at Level 3C to achieving a secure Level 4 in his maths SATS paper.
I firmly believe that this was due to his existing willingness to learn and understand combined with the use of his preferred learning styles in my teaching. The confidence ‘Jamie’ got from achieving the small goals we collectively set, spurred him on to tackle the obstacles in his way. The difference between the ‘Jamie’ in Year 5 and the one that I worked with in Year 6 was that he was offered alternatives to strategies that may not have appealed to his learning style. By giving him information in a highly visual manner and allowing him to categorise explanations ‘Jamie’ began to see how calculations and formulas worked. It was truly amazing to see a child grow in confidence and watch how he independently made connections within the different aspects of maths, all of which came from the recognition that he may prefer to learn in a variety of ways.

The biggest revelation for me has been how significant an impact learning styles have on a child’s understanding. It is vital that we at least recognise that a child learns in a number of ways and that we try to incorporate these styles in to our daily teaching. The learning styles analysis in combination with the self-esteem data proved to be an incredibly valuable source of information. The QCA tests data analysis and teacher assessments were complimented by this additional information and this enabled me to produce highly detailed portraits of my targeted children. Although my contact with the children may have been limited to once or twice a week, I felt that this insightful information helped me to develop a speedy rapport with them. The intervention programmes have provided me with a steep learning curve and I now feel even better equipped to assess a child and devise a tailored learning programme to best suit their needs. A child is an individual and in the hectic daily life of class teaching we sometimes forget this, I believe that these case studies clearly show the personal and academic gains that can be made by looking at the ‘whole’ child.

For further details please contact:
Geoff Turrell
Director, ATHENA EiCAZ, Birmingham
Tel 0121 464 5726
gpturrell@hotmail.com