Educational attainment
Educational attainment
Author
Introduction
The Covid-19 lockdown led to an increase in the educational attainment gap between children from disadvantaged communities and their more affluent peers, particularly in STEM subjects. At the same time, it has been shown that parents are children’s first and most enduring educators and that a focus on early years learning at home can have a positive impact on children’s development and academic attainment.
2022 Award
Lisa Finnegan (CF 2016) is an executive headteacher in an area of considerable disadvantage in Lancashire, and Deputy CEO of the Pennine Trust. In 2018, she was deployed as a consultant across schools in the area to implement strategies she had learnt on her Fellowship in order to raise academic attainment in mathematics. Through this work, she saw how crucial it was to secure the support and involvement of parents in their children’s learning and she wants to incorporate this in her vision to reduce the attainment gap in her area.
Lisa has been awarded one of our Activate grants to roll out the Making it REAL model across schools in Colne, Lancashire. The Making it REAL model is an award-winning programme that helps practitioners work with parents to build their confidence in supporting their children’s early literacy and development. Lisa is going to apply this model to the learning of mathematics. The grant will enable Lisa to train herself and fellow practitioners on the model in order to support disadvantaged families across the community of Colne, including parents who are reluctant to engage due to their own negative school experiences. It will fund regular engagement events between parents and teachers and will also enable Lisa and her colleagues to be released from some of their school duties in order to conduct regular home visits to support parents.
Lisa will develop and roll the programme out over an 18-month period, by which time she hopes that the model will be firmly embedded in the community and the attainment gap will have decreased. She hopes that parents will gain increased confidence to support their children and see that a conceptual understanding of mathematics can be developed through ordinary, everyday activities that families can do in the home without needing to buy expensive toys or equipment.
Lisa’s Fellowship explored the impact of Shanghai mastery maths teaching.
2022 Award
Lisa Finnegan (CF 2016) is an executive headteacher in an area of considerable disadvantage in Lancashire, and Deputy CEO of the Pennine Trust. In 2018, she was deployed as a consultant across schools in the area to implement strategies she had learnt on her Fellowship in order to raise academic attainment in mathematics. Through this work, she saw how crucial it was to secure the support and involvement of parents in their children’s learning and she wants to incorporate this in her vision to reduce the attainment gap in her area.
Lisa has been awarded one of our Activate grants to roll out the Making it REAL model across schools in Colne, Lancashire. The Making it REAL model is an award-winning programme that helps practitioners work with parents to build their confidence in supporting their children’s early literacy and development. Lisa is going to apply this model to the learning of mathematics. The grant will enable Lisa to train herself and fellow practitioners on the model in order to support disadvantaged families across the community of Colne, including parents who are reluctant to engage due to their own negative school experiences. It will fund regular engagement events between parents and teachers and will also enable Lisa and her colleagues to be released from some of their school duties in order to conduct regular home visits to support parents.
Lisa will develop and roll the programme out over an 18-month period, by which time she hopes that the model will be firmly embedded in the community and the attainment gap will have decreased. She hopes that parents will gain increased confidence to support their children and see that a conceptual understanding of mathematics can be developed through ordinary, everyday activities that families can do in the home without needing to buy expensive toys or equipment.
Lisa’s Fellowship explored the impact of Shanghai mastery maths teaching.