Outcomes and Impact

Teaching, Learning and Assessment

A photo showing five GCSE English learners reading aloud together at the front of the class.

The introduction of the anthology has had the most impact at this stage. Learners report they appreciate the reduced number of texts they are faced with and having the opportunity to re-visit texts has allowed greater discussions within the classrooms. Learners have been able to connect their memories and prior knowledge to the texts (Willingham T, 2017). By reducing the number of texts, learners have more time to apply the exam skills to the extracts rather than spending time each lesson trying to comprehend fresh material. Assessment results have improved, as shown in the learner case studies, further evidencing that changes to the approach of teaching are resulting in progress within the classroom.

The themed lessons have had a mixed impact. ‘War and Conflict’ was the learners’ top choice in the last academic year and has so far been the most engaged with theme with this cohort. (Appendix 6).

Trying different strategies to get learners reading aloud has been a positive change to the teaching and learning; learners are becoming more comfortable with reading in front of their peers and holding relevant discussions about the texts. As studies show increased learner discussions and active participation facilitate learning (Kenney & Banerjee, 2011), this is a real strength of the project.

Final learner voice, completed in May 2022, compared to learner voice gathered in February 2021, showed positive overall outcomes with regards to learner enjoyment and understanding of lessons. (Appendix 7).

Gathering learner voice throughout the project became a more impactful tool than anticipated. We were able to identify learners who were not enjoying English, who did not find the work was explained well or did not get on with their teacher. The project lead, who is also the Programme Manager for the English department, withdrew this information and was able to contact the relevant learners, showing a) they are listened to and b) we are willing to help. This allowed opportunity for classes to be changed and additional support to be offered outside of the classroom; a benefit which was unanticipated at the start of the project.

Organisational Development

The project has allowed us to build relationships with the technology department (professional standard 20), which, in turn, has demonstrated to learners that English is not a separate entity to their vocational area. This has appeared like a sign of solidarity between us and our technology colleagues and has helped to build collaborative relationships with the learners (professional standard 6). Forming these relationships has engaged and motivated learners within our sessions and may have been a contributing factor in why they feel comfortable reading in our classes.

The videos recorded of the technology teachers are yet to be used properly, and so the impact of this is still to be seen, but we hope that in time they will inspire and motivate learners to read.

We worked with the LRC, something we have not done before, to promote our anthology to learners. We were able to explore what books were already available to learners and acquired several boxes of ‘quick-reads’ to have in our classrooms to support and encourage reading at the start of sessions.

As a result of hard work and careful planning, we were able to get the anthology out in time for commencement of teaching in September 2021. This was a real strength of the project as it enabled all GCSE learners the chance to focus their attention on the academic skill they needed for the exam, rather than battling to comprehend new material each session and then apply a tricky skill like evaluation, all in the space of ninety minutes.

This was not without its challenges, however. The impact of disrupted learning due to the pandemic on our learners has been profound, not just academically but with behaviour issues we have not faced before. The first theme the learners were reading about was Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). Reflecting on this, we still believe this is an important topic and the texts chosen worked well, in particular ‘The Hate U Give’. In the next academic year, however, we will push this theme later in the year once learners have matured and fully understand the appropriate way to behave in the FE environment. Unfortunately, some opinions detracted from the lessons and assessing comprehension of the texts became challenging due to lively discussions which would often go off on tangents.

Trialling reading strategies such as ‘Echo reading’ (Didau, 2021) was surprisingly effective. The idea that the teacher reads a small section (a sentence or two) and a reader then repeats this aloud – effectively echoing the teacher – initially sounded a little primary school. However, learners participated and acknowledged why this could be an effective strategy and were able to demonstrate comprehension of the text after reading, so this was a success.

This strategy was particularly influential to us as practitioners as we had to stop and consider the potential cognitive overload of our learners. Reading along with the teacher initially seems like a straightforward task until you stop to consider the effect this can actually have on a learner’s understanding of texts.

Moving forward, we have learned to attempt new strategies – even if there is a fear they will not work. With echo reading, we continued to trial this for a while longer; however we slipped back into the routine of learners reading sections out loud rather than echoing the teacher. This is still a success with regards to comprehension, as learners have now developed the confidence to read aloud in class and it is rare for them to refuse.

The L’ Explore Analytics software certainly opened our eyes to the challenges our learners have with reading. Visibly seeing their eyes darting around the screen as they tried to read was a real insight into what their processing was like, and the learners were quite fascinated when we were able to show them a picture of their eye movements. (Appendix 8). It was also interesting to watch learners read the extracts almost fluently yet fail to answer the comprehension questions immediately afterwards; evidence that learners can read words but there is a difference between decoding and comprehending the meaning of those words.
Unfortunately, due to staffing issues within the department, we did not have the capacity to explore this software further this year. We can see huge potential with the system, and the learners really engaged with the experimental phase of the training, so it will be interesting to explore this further in the next academic year.

Reading time (10-15 minutes) was introduced at the start of lessons in place of the current 5-a-day question starter activity. Learners were presented with the ‘quick-reads’ that we acquired from the LRC. Tutor observations were recorded, and learners gave feedback on post-it notes.

All learners chose a book and started reading. Some learners freely discussed details about the book they had read with the class or read out the synopsis. Some commented that they liked the quiet; however, others struggled to remain focused to read and got distracted talking to peers or looking at their phone. Two motor vehicle learners who were not engaged said they would read if there were books or magazines about cars with more pictures in.

There were some real positives that came out of the activity. The task opened discussion about reading with one technology learner sharing that their parent had helped them to set a schedule for reading at home, but he didn’t stick to it. In addition, five learners asked to take the book they had started to read home to continue reading. Others asked if we would do the activity again and asked if they could bring in their own books to do so and this did happen. Another learner mentioned that they thought their book had started well and we discussed how they could use something similar in their own writing.

Out of the twenty-five learners who gave feedback on the task, nine said that they would not like to do the task again with comments such as: [the task was] ‘boring’, ‘did not like reading’ or ‘prefer the 5-a-day activity’. Ten learners were positive about the task, largely saying they would like to do it again and a couple saying that they liked the slower/more relaxed start to lessons.

Feedback was received from the LRC about books that were borrowed from the anthology. The results show that, as shown in learner voice feedback, the war and conflict and EDI topics were the most popular. (Appendix 5).