Blog of the Week: 16 April 2021 – Sustainable improvement – What works in addressing learning loss

Introduction

Learning loss caused by the covid pandemic has led to a large number of catch-up initiatives internationally, such as the National Education Programme in the Netherlands, which provides schools with significant additional funding to address the issue. This and similar initiatives by national governments are to be welcomed, though the danger exists that money will be squandered rather than spent effectively. In this blog I will describe some evidence-based approaches to address learning loss.

I The teacher at the core

Notwithstanding some controversy around the term, the evidence that learning loss has arisen as a result of the pandemic is overwhelming, as is the fact that the gap is greatest among pupils from families with the lowest levels of education (Engzell, Frey & Verhagen, 2020; NFER, 2021). Government support to eliminate learning gaps is therefore welcome. However, effective interventions need to put the teacher …

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Blog of the Week: 12 January 2018 – The ‘Intervention’ beast

Misstakesonschool

A recent @sputniksteve thread on Twitter asked teachers to contribute their most hated edu terms. Mine was ‘intervention’ and I was not alone. When I first encountered the term I didn’t really understand what it meant. I’d always used ‘revision’. (I’ve come to realise that the model of ‘revision sessions’ is also not as effective as retention practices in the every day classroom). I thought ‘intervention is a synonym for ‘revision’. It’s not really though – it actually means ‘more teaching’.

I don’t remember running much of ‘it’ at all in my first few years – maybe the odd day in the Easter holidays just before exam season. Later, we devised the ‘Revision weekend’ focusing exclusively on the core and particular attainment groups (some of this was also determined by FSM status). I was happy to do it. In fact, I liked doing it. The kids were ‘on it’ and…

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