System wide survey of pupil perspectives on the curriculum' - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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System wide survey of pupil perspectives on the curriculum'

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Presenters: Paul Crisp and Laura Smith. CUREE. Building the Evidence Base. Concerned with 4 curriculum domains derived from QCA policy interests: ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: System wide survey of pupil perspectives on the curriculum'


1
System wide survey of pupil perspectives on the
curriculum.
  • Presenters
  • Paul Crisp and Laura Smith
  • CUREE

2
Building the Evidence Base
3
What were we interested in?
  • Concerned with 4 curriculum domains derived from
    QCA policy interests
  • Challenge and inspiration
  • Flexibility and choice
  • Student lifestyles and health
  • Motivational influences
  • Mile wide, inch deep
  • Take the pulse
  • Provisional and illustrative

4
Method of data collection
  • Web based survey in March and April 2008
  • 8 Focus groups used to
  • Explore issues which could not effectively be
    dealt with via a survey
  • Explore in greater depth interesting/ ambiguous
    findings from the survey
  • Draw out the views of some students who were
    unlikely to participate in the survey

5
Survey design features 1
  • About 100 questions
  • Separate secondary and primary (latter had fewer
    questions)
  • Quick and easy to complete (max 20 mins)
  • Looked for impressions, opinions and feelings
    (not verifiable facts)
  • Few free text and mostly select from list
    answers
  • Delivered entirely on-line

6
Survey design features 2
  • Separate (optional) sections for
  • Contact details
  • ethnicity
  • Additional section for subsidiary enquiry on
    14-19 (Diploma)
  • Extensive use of bi-polar (semantic
    differential) question type
  • Some reversed questions for validation check

7
What did it look like?
8
Focus groups
  • Conducted 8 focus groups in total all secondary
  • Two at individual schools
  • One at pupil voice conference
  • Three specifically exploring 14-19 and diploma
    issues
  • Two in pupil referral units

9
The sample
  • Total responses 2819 (target 1200)
  • Secondary 1807
  • Primary 1012
  • Total participating schools 66
  • primary 37
  • secondary 29
  • Close match to English school population for
    gender, disadvantage, student achievement and
    value added
  • Sample from larger schools than English mean
    (sample mean 925, all schools mean 728)

10
Sample - ethnicity
  • Sample close to national average for overall
    proportion of ethnic minority students
  • Under represented in Asian and black students
  • Over represented in other category
  • Could be consequence of students choosing to be
    non-specific in replies

11
Findings primary now -challenge and inspiration
  • Majority feel curriculum
  • is varied
  • takes account of what they know already
  • contains a lot of practical activity
  • involves a substantial amount of group/collective
    working
  • draws on out-of-school experiences
  • is useful to them out of school

12
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13
Findings primary future-challenge and
inspiration
  • Would like broadly what they get now with more of
    the features they experience positively eg
  • varied lessons
  • practical activities
  • use of the internet
  • working with people from outside school

14
Findings primary -challenge and inspiration
  • But
  • Though 50 think lessons are just the right
    amount of challenge
  • 31.1 said they were too easy
  • 17.1 said they were too hard
  • Might suggest that the level of challenge in the
    primary curriculum is less than the students
    expect or are capable of

15
Findings primary autonomy and influence
  • Primary students experience the curriculum as
    largely directed by the teacher in these areas
  • what they learn
  • where they learn
  • quantity of homework
  • In the future, pupils want more autonomy/
    influence over
  • how they are taught
  • what they are taught
  • who they work with
  • how much homework they get

16
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17
Primary - lifestyles and health
18
Primary motivational influences
  • Parents and friends had high expectations
  • 60 thought their friends wanted them to do well
    at school, rising to 85 for parents expectations
  • Around 30 felt that parental pressure was a
    bit/lot too much while 22 felt that parents put
    too little pressure on them

19
Secondary- challenge and inspiration
  • More than 50 felt that
  • they did a lot of practical activities
  • they often used what they learned at school in
    their lives outside of school
  • they did a mix of different things in lessons
  • they used the internet often at school

20
Secondary- challenge and inspiration
  • A substantial minority felt that
  • Their teachers often made connections between
    subjects
  • Their teachers were good at finding out what they
    already knew
  • They often worked in groups with other students
  • They were not generally positive about
  • connection between lessons and their own
    experiences
  • the use of audio visual resources

21
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22
Secondary challenge and inspiration
  • There was a broad spread of response about the
    degree of difficulty of lessons
  • 51.5 said they were about right
  • 31.2 said they were too easy
  • 17.4 said they were too hard
  • As with primary students, most secondary students
    wanted more of the features they felt positive
    about

23
Secondary experience and aspiration
  • The biggest (gt20) gaps between student
    experience and aspiration were in
  • Opportunities to link lessons to experience
  • Amount of practical activity
  • Mix of activity
  • Use of AV resources and the internet

24
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25
Secondary flexibility and choiceindividual
subjects
  • From focus groups picture of
  • idiosyncratic practice which varied by teacher
    and institution rather than by subject
  • Postive view of practice in science, English,
    maths and PSHE but also unimaginative and teacher
    dominated learning in those subjects
  • few practical activities in math although often
    challenging (e.g. Lots of problem solving)

26
Focus group suggestions
  • Maths
  • more problem solving
  • trips on a maths theme
  • more practical work
  • more explanations
  • Importance of English
  • speaking
  • spelling
  • having an expanded vocabulary
  • being able to write letters etc in a business
    context

27
Secondary autonomy influence
  • Not surprisingly
  • 66 have experience of peer-assessment/marking
  • 47 say teachers ask what they are finding
    difficult
  • 20 say they have a choice about how much
    homework
  • 11 say they have a choice about what homework
  • Over 70 of students would like to
  • be able to choose who they work with
  • have a say in how they are taught
  • have a say in what they learn about in lessons
  • Nearly 70 of students would like
  • to have a greater choice in what subjects they
    want to do
  • more say in how much homework they get

28
Secondary lifestyles and health
  • Significant majority say that they eat healthily
    and have been taught about healthy eating
  • Only 13 claim that teachers dont know anything
    about drugs
  • 56.8 say influenced by learning at school, but
  • Only 4.6 say their friends are
  • Focus groups said that schools teaching about
    drugs was not very effective

29
Secondary motivational influences
  • Secondary school felt more stressful and more
    demanding then primary school
  • 17 felt not pressured enough by teachers
  • 73 said parents expected them to do well at
    school
  • Nearly 30 of students thought they were under
    too much pressure from parents.

30
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31
Some interesting points
  • More students (primary and secondary) feel that
    their lessons are too easy than feel they are too
    hard
  • Secondary students thought that maths was both
    the hardest and third easiest subject
  • Focus group generally critical of the teaching of
    maths but recognised importance of the subject
  • Apart from maths, no strongly perceived
    correlation between the subject and the manner of
    its teaching
  • Some of the secondary curriculum reforms being
    implemented formally in 2008 are already
    experienced by significant numbers of students

32
Some interesting points 2
  • Drugs, alcohol and healthy eating education is
    well established in both primary and secondary
    schools..
  • But , for secondary students, the sight of
    overweight people on television on the street
    had greater impact than school activities
  • Dealing with stress was the least developed
    aspect of lifestyle personal wellbeing
    education
  • Secondary schools were felt to be more pressured
    environments that primary but parental
    expectations were high in both.
  • Substantial minorities of students felt they were
    under too little pressure from teachers or
    parents, although parents (at 24.5) did worse
    than teachers (17)
  • Few significant differences in responses when
    examined by gender or Key Stage level . Age had a
    bigger impact but still not a very big one
    particularly in the areas of choice and autonomy.

33
Contributors
  • Philippa Cordingley
  • Prof Mark Hadfield
  • Colin Isham
  • Emma King
  • Prof Daniel Muijs
  • QDP Services
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