Rationale

For many of our GCSE resit students, attendance at parents’ evenings, home support for attendance issues and assessment feedback discussion with parents is minimal. Many families find sixth form college a daunting environment. Without all around background support for learners, it can be easy for them to lose track and disengage.

Our project focused on interviews, discussions and questionnaires with both students and parents. The themes investigated included students’ feelings about their maths learning and attainment, experiences of online learning, maths ‘legacy’ attitudes and approaches to and preparation for assessments.

In the process of carrying out the discussions we identified key barriers to parental involvement and student progress that will be addressed. We also aimed to identify ways that we could support the students to become more effective in their studies.

“Perhaps the most interesting finding is the fact that the more parents and children talk to each other about meaningful subjects, the better students achieve; home conversation really matters
(Lucas, 2010 pg 3).

Approach

What shall we ask?

• Students were asked to generate questions that they thought relevant to their parents’ experience of learning maths.
• Motivation, achievement, environment and expectation were discussed.
  (Appendix 1)

Parents sent 3 questions

• Three questions on what they enjoyed, what was helpful and what advice they had for our maths teachers.
  (Appendix 2)

Student interviews

• In groups of three, students were interviewed with discussions on parental responses to maths learning, students’ own experience of maths learning, strategies for exam preparation and advice for future students and teachers.
  (Appendix 3)

Student home conversations

• Students had conversations with their families about maths.

Feedback from students

• Four written questions were put to students about their preparations for assessments, home conversations about maths and thoughts on improvement.
  (Appendix 4)

Feedback to Staff

• Findings discussed specifically with Maths staff at the college
• Shared across college with other staff at CPD event

Feedback further afield

• Findings shared at Sixth Form College Conference
• Findings shared at ASK Maths lead teachers event Stoke on Trent.

Professional Learning: Evidence of changes in teaching, learning and assessment practices

Reflective practice and enquiry are embedded in our professional life in the college. Students are regularly asked for their responses in student surveys and questionnaires.

Designing and considering the questions used in our project afforded opportunities for discussions on cultural, religious and socio-economic matters effecting learning in maths.

The students’ lead on the questions discussed gave more direction, relevance and weight to the project.

Three main publications were used in guiding our project:

• Engaging parents in Raising Achievement: Do they know they matter? (Goodall and Harris, 2007)
• The impact of parent engagement on learner success: Identifying barriers to learning (Lucas, 2010)
• A Guide to Tackling Maths Anxiety – Insights from the Power of Maths Roundtable.

All student names are anonymised. No other identifiers of individual students are used.

Evidence of improved collaboration and changes in organisation practices

Our planning, scheduling and schemes of work address all the findings of this work. Collaboration with parents is enhanced by progress coach liaison, exam preparation and specific timetabling for such and is already embedded in next year’s scheme of work based on this project.

Meetings with the maths team and across the wider Level 3 foundation1 teachers and support staff will include findings and reflection on this work.
Work has been presented to the Sixth Form College Association national conference 2021.

We lead teachers will be sharing findings at ASK Maths (An opportunity area project across 3 colleges and work-based learner providers in Stoke on Trent/North Staffordshire) college staff and work-based learning tutors and teachers.

Evidence of improvement in learners’ achievements, retention and progression

The four main themes of the interviews, discussions and questionnaires can be summarised in these student statements:

When Ellie made the statement that she was “Never gonna get my maths”, she was making it to her classmates and to her sibling: How could she expect to surpass her mother’s achievement in maths? Ellie was capable of achieving a Grade 4 in her GCSE but her crushing lack of confidence permeated every part of her learning in maths.

It’s a powerful statement of intent that she got ready and into her lesson for 8:45am. What didn’t keep her here? About 5 weeks after that statement Ellie left the college and left education. Phone calls to her mother and to Ellie herself to encourage her to stay were fruitless.

Other interviews with students revealed a similar pessimism about the results but they stayed.

From the beginning of the year we encountered the ‘I can’t see it’ (success in maths). This is expressed in various forms from many of our students in resit maths and perhaps represents an even greater call for us to harness the glimmer of hope that gets our students in to the room for a lesson in the first place.

The need for an injection of support, trust and open communication is clear and, in every student, we saw an opportunity to begin helping students move on from feeling a failure.

For example, Mia felt failing maths was inevitable and catastrophic but later in the year she said:

‘I enjoy maths now because I’m not so scared of getting it wrong if that makes sense? Because I’ve already failed it now, I’ve already had that feeling so now it’s like I’m on the road to making things better’’.