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Raising
boys’ achievement and motivation at
KS3 in design and technology |
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School: John Cabot CTC,
Bristol |
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Fellow: Joanna Postlethwaite |
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Email: joannapostlethwaite@blueyonder.co.uk |
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Aims: |
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To decrease the gap between
boys and girls achievement at Key Stage
Three |
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To increase the number of level 5
and Level 6 achieved by boys in DT. |
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To improve the behaviour and effort
of boys during DT lessons. |
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To increase the number of boys opting
for DT possibly within food and textiles. |
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Outline of Project: |
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I wanted to find out why boys
behave the way they do in design technology
lessons, what I could do to improve this behaviour
and whether a variety of different resources,
single gender classes and different teaching
styles could have any impact on this behaviour. |
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What I have achieved one term into
the fellowship: |
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Last year we started to pilot
single gender teaching in Year 9. When I applied
to Gatsby in January I had only experienced
all girl classes at Year 9, and as I was used
to this from GCSE and A’ Level I was
feeling great trepidation at what two sets
of all boy groups doing textiles would be
like. |
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I was right to be nervous,
the first class was awful! There were many
lessons when they left and the room looked
like a bombsite and I felt like I had gone
twenty rounds with Mike Tyson. The boys and
I just didn’t get on. I found this very
hard to cope with, as I have always felt that
I was able to develop good relationships with
my pupils and previously had always managed
to get a pupil to co-operate. So being confronted
by a whole class of teenage boys, that didn’t
want to do ‘sewing’ or be in a
pink room came quite close to finishing me
off and making me seriously question whether
or not it was worth it! |
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Around this time a colleague
of mine, with responsibility for Key Stage
Three, was having similar problems with her
food group and so wrote a questionnaire for
the pupils to complete. This was to question
them about their feelings and attitudes towards
design technology, their teachers and the
sorts of experiences they were receiving.
The results were fascinating. A large percentage
of the boys felt that in mixed gender classes
the female teachers except when they were
to be told off for something mainly ignored
them! This was quite hard to read, but the
more I thought about it and looked back at
the previous years classes, I realised that
they were right. So what were we going to
do about it? I decided to call on the experts!
I contacted the local Key Stage Three Strategy
Advisor for South Gloucestershire Kenny Duncan,
and together we planned a section of the next
project to team-teach. I will go into this
in more detail during my presentation. |
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The end of term came round
very quickly and we were able to collate our
Key Stage Three results. As a result of trialling
single gender classes, on one half of the
year we achieved our best Key Stage Three
results ever! |
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Out of 271 pupils:
1% dropped one level from Year 8 records
30% stayed the same
68.5% raised their level (55% by one level,
13% by two levels and 0.4% by three levels)
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Clearly this showed a great
improvement, although we had been involved
in the Key Stage Three Strategy for the year
and clearly this had also made a big difference,
it was hard to ignore the results and so we
decided to continue with the pilot for another
year and to extend it to both halves of the
year. |
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As an additional bonus I also
had one boy opting for GCSE Textiles, something
that hadn’t happened for five years! |
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I was able to write a wish
list at the end of the year of things that
I thought would make life easier for both
my pupils and me in the classroom. When my
money came in in September the first thing
I did was to purchase forty new pairs of scissors,
two huge boxes of colouring pencils and 100
fine liners pens! This may seem a waste of
the money when items like interactive white
boards could be purchased, but I feel it is
the little things that have started to make
the biggest difference. |
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At the start of each lesson
the pupils can come up and collect a pencil,
set square, ruler, colouring pencils and fine-liner
to help them with their design work. This
had stopped all of the messing about at the
beginning of lessons with them having to borrow
pencils from their friends. They know where
the stuff is and they don’t get a lecture
from me about not bringing their own equipment!
It has made the start of lessons smoother
and has definitely improved the quality and
presentation of their work. |
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As for the scissors, well you
would have thought the pupils had never seen
a new sharp pair of scissors before! No more
moaning that they cant cut something out and
no more hacking at their work! |
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I have also bought a digital
camera and printer dock to use in my classroom.
It has helped the pupil’s motivation
to get practical work finished. I can take
the photo and they come back in the morning
to collect a ‘proper’ photo to
attach to their work. |
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It is amazing how money seems
to generate money. Armed with my project outline
I was able to bid successfully for a laptop
and I have been able to plead for freebies
from the wonderful TEP. Additionally when
I left school on Friday ten new computers
with flat screens were being installed into
my teaching block! I know they were already
in the pipeline but we had been waiting four
years for computers! I am sure when I go into
school tomorrow the pupils and I will just
all stand round them and stare in awe, who
needs modern art when you can have a computer
that actually works! |
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What changes have I made and why? |
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One area I was going to look
at was what happens in single gender schools
in textiles and food lessons. Once I started
to look into this area I found a surprising
result. Not many boys’ schools actually
teach textiles. Talking to other colleagues
in the county I have also been surprised to
discover the number of schools that have actually
dropped textiles from their curriculum. As
a result of this I have decided to just focus
on my school. The only other area that boys
are taught on their own is P.E. Last summer
I went to speak to the male P.E staff about
the boys and how they respond to them and
manage to get the best out of boys that are
causing problems in many other areas of the
school. It seems that humour goes a long way!
My brother is Head of P.E at another local
school and has taught in quite a few challenging
schools as well as spending a year teaching
in New Zealand. As he was extremely doubtful
of my ability to be funny he provided me with
a list of conundrums. He has used these with
challenging pupils to get them on side. He
used to tell them the puzzle and then give
them the answer at the end! He said it helped
to calm the pupils down and got them to listen
to him at the beginning of the lesson. I have
tried this a number of times and have found
it really useful. I write the puzzle on the
board and then if the pupils are good give
them five minutes at the end to quiz me for
the answer. This also is a good tool to have
up your sleeve in nightmare cover lessons. |
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Personal reflections: |
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What I think has changed most
is me. I really took on board what last years
pupils said at the start of the pilot and
now I make sure that I will make contact with
all pupils in my classes, not just the nice
well behaved girls. |
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I am also much more relaxed
with the boys. I make sure that my projects
are more tailor made to their interests and
have learnt to be able to talk about rugby
and football without limiting it to which
players I fancy. |
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I have set up with the help
of another colleague a DT club that runs on
Tuesday lunchtime. Twenty pupils turned up!
Including three Year 9 boys, one of which
I had terrible problems with in Year 8, now
he says ‘hello’ to me in the corridor
and keeps wanting to know when the next project
is starting. |
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I have enjoyed every minute
of it so far but have also found it extremely
exhausting and at times hard to focus on this
in between being a normal classroom teacher
and all my additional responsibilities in
the faculty and other areas of school. I have
been extremely lucky to have such a supportive
department. |
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What’s Next? |
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We decided last summer that
we needed to go on the offensive to get pupils
to opt for our subject at GCSE. We did a very
impressive power point presentation to Year
9 before options and this meant that we got
a higher number of pupils opting for DT. We
want to carry this on this year and are thinking
for ways of boasting our profile around the
school. |
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I have just put in a bid to
SLT to run a Year 7 Design Technology Day
in the summer term. The theme will be ‘The
Real World’. The aim of the day is to
give the pupils a real insight into where
DT could take them as well as to foster a
love and enthusiasm for the subject. |
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How will I evaluate the outcome
on this project? |
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I will be collating the levels
from Year 9 in time for the end of key stage
assessments and so I will be able to compare
this data with last year’s results to
see whether we have continued to improve.
I will also compile a questionnaire for staff
one year on to see how their experiences of
single gender teaching has differed from last
years. I will also be analysing the numbers
of pupils opting for GCSE to see if there
is an increase. Lastly I plan to survey the
Year 7 pupils involved in the DT Day before
and after the day so see how their perceptions
of DT as a subject have changed. |
