I recently visited Michaela (a secondary school), which scored the highest in the country in terms of pupil progress last year. This means that, according to the data, pupils that attend Michaela make more progress from Year 7 to Year 11 (GCSEs) relative to where they started than any other school in the country.
What’s surprising is that Michaela is not a school in an affluent leafy suburb, but situated in a relatively deprived area (Wembley, NW London) with a large number of pupils on free school meals. It has been on my radar for a while and it’s great that they offer structured visits for people to come in and see their approach.
I had three key questions that I wanted to reflect on in this visit:
- Can schools overcome the effect of socio-economic disparities on attainment / results?
- Do they have a narrow curriculum that focuses on teaching to the test or are they teaching the knowledge and skills needed to achieve positive long-term outcomes beyond their GCSE grades?
- If they succeed in getting the results, is this enough to reach the top? Will these children go on to be the next generation of senior elite professionals, successful entrepreneurs and influential voices?
My views on whether a school can significantly influence attainment and life outcomes have changed over the years – I have become less optimistic the more research I’ve seen.
For context, I reflect a lot on my own journey and think about whether my school was a significant factor in where I am today. Overall, I think factors outside of school played a more important role in my attainment and more generally this is backed up by the evidence – child and family level factors being more influential compared to school and area.
Here are some of my main reflections from the school visit:
Behaviour – I was surprised how efficient teaching can be when you nail behaviour and pupil engagement. It was clear that pupil disruption was an absolute minimum here and teachers were able to focus their efforts on teaching. Making the most of every minute in school is even more important for pupils without the home learning environment of their peers.
High standards and expectations – the children knew they were being held to high standards and it was clearly motivational for them. The pupils I spoke to were conscious of the opportunity the school was providing for them and they were
Traditional teaching methods – sometimes tried and tested methods work well, and this felt like the case here. Teachers being highly knowledgeable in their subject area and being able to communicate well is the defining factor in pupil engagement rather than fancy IT equipment and apps. However, they had moved on from the plastic film projectors to using cameras hooked up to a smart-board!
Results – it’s clear is that they are effectively translating key knowledge to their pupils and helping them attain a high level of reading, writing and maths. These are the essential building blocks to be able to teach yourself anything. Once you can do that, you are empowered to take control of your own destiny.
Preparing pupils for life beyond school – there was a prominent theme of gratitude and public speaking that was noticeable from the classroom to the dinner hall. Pupils were encouraged to articulate forms of gratitude to large groups and did so confidently e.g. at the end of lunch in the hall. This was really impressive gave them lots of opportunity to practise speaking in front of large groups than I ever had. The most noticeable trait I see in people from affluent backgrounds is their ability to speak in a confident, articulate and polished manner.
Revisiting the three questions posed at the start:
- Can schools overcome the effect of socio-economic disparities on attainment and future outcomes?
Michaela demonstrates the extent to which progress can be made by a school on pupil’s results. In practise, after this visit, I am more optimistic about what is possible for schools to achieve, but less optimistic about how widely a school like Michaela can be implemented. This is because it would probably take a level of buy-in from the parents to subscribe to the ethos and rules of the school, which may not be available across the country.
2. Do they have a narrow curriculum and focus on teaching to the test? Or are they teaching the knowledge and skills needed to achieve positive long-term outcomes beyond their GCSE grades?
From what I’ve read, there may be some narrowing of the curriculum in terms of GCSE options. But overall, I saw a wide variety of work on display and various educational offerings to engage with. They haven’t taken their eye of the ball when it comes to soft skills as well – especially public speaking.
Year 7s were eager to come and speak to me about what I do and were able to articulate themselves very well. I haven’t seen this level of engagement in a school before. In fact, I’ve left some schools feeling a deep sense of worry for the children’s futures by their lack of engagement.
I think it’s clear that they prioritise knowledge over skills, but I wasn’t able to get into this aspect much. In my view, getting pupils to the point where they are eager and able to teach themselves new things is the priority and so their focus on foundational knowledge, especially in reading, writing and maths seems sensible with this age group.
It would be interesting to run a longitudinal study of pupils that attend Michaela to see what their trajectories look like.
3. If they succeed in getting the results, is this enough to reach the top? Will these children go on to be the next generation of senior elite professionals, successful entrepreneurs and influential voices?
I certainly think they’re playing their part in the system as well as they can. They are providing children with the pre-requisite in terms of knowledge and grades needed to compete with their more affluent peers. The issue is there are too many factors outside of the school’s control that will determine these children’s success. For example, being in London is a major plus for opportunities, but has its downsides in other things such as home ownership.
The fact that they facilitate visits from professionals like myself is a major bonus as well, as this will undoubtedly be creating the connections they need to build opportunities for the pupils going forward. The rest of the system needs to perform as highly for these children to reach the top.
I really enjoyed my visit to Michaela and would encourage anyone interested in the education system, behaviour and attainment to pay them a visit.