Teach Secondary 13.5

SCHOOL’S OUT – or is it? Nikki Cunningham-Smith examines the practicalities, risks and benefits of organising a school study programme over the summer months F or years, teachers have discussed whether there’s a dip in students’ attainment at the start of the autumn term, compared to the end of the previous summer term. A 2023 analysis of standardised scores by FFT Education Datalab found that “ In general, Autumn term results tend to be lower than the previous Summer term. By contrast, Summer term results are, on average 3 points higher than Spring term results. ” (see bit.ly/ ts135-SS1) Interestingly, the same analysis also found that the greatest variability between pupils’ results seemed to occur during autumn, suggesting that “ The summer affects some pupils more than others. ” Proof of progress One way of responding to this need has been the top-up funding made available to schools to facilitate the catch-up of Y7 pupils. The need to support those pupils with lower starting points, remains ever present and carries over throughout the Key Stages – but could it be possible, with sufficient creativity, for schools to embed systems that consistently show students’ results and progress over time? And could such a system perhaps be instrumental in levelling the playing field when it comes to students’ attainment? It’s been reported that lower income students tend to have fewer opportunities to access summer clubs or visit museums and libraries, which can provide valuable learning opportunities over the period when schools are shut, so could having access to prescribed extracurricular activities in school help to remedy this? There would, of course, need to be careful consideration of how such programmes would be staffed. If what we’re trying to do is raise pupils’ attainment, then it follows that we would need access to QTS-qualified educators. This should, at the very least, provide a level of quality assurance, since we will need to later demonstrate how our summer study system attendees have been able to make tangible progress. ‘Pre-learning’ versus ‘standalone’ While this wouldn’t (and indeed shouldn’t) become a new expectation for staff during the holiday season, I do believe that there will always be teachers willing to sign up for a summer study scheme in return for financial remuneration. After all, just look at the market for exammarkers. Amore difficult question is whether our system should be an exercise in ‘pre-learning’, and hence be informed by the National Curriculum, or if it should function a separate, standalone programme. I think this would ultimately be for schools to decide, based on engagement levels and determination of need. Would there realistically be enough time in the teaching year to carry out a form of assessment that could identify the learning gaps needing to be addressed by a summer programme? And even if there was, should this process be executed by individual schools, or might there be some shared capacity for creating centralised tests and a scheme of work for students to follow? Alternativeways to learn As a SENCo, I once set up a summer holiday provision myself. I was handed a set of names and told I had to improve the students’ basic English, maths and science attainment based on their SATs results. The school had run a summer programme previously, but it had been poorly attended – and upon closer examination, I could see why. Select pupils had been told that they needed to attend a ‘summer school’ to catch up with the rest of their peers. These were pupils who had no “The programmehadbeenpoorly attended – andupon closer examination, I could seewhy...” 72 teachwire.net/secondary