Curriculum Provision for Higher-Ability Pupils

Curriculum provision Curriculum provision for higher-ability pupils VALSA KOSHY and RON CASEY In this article we provide a brief account of a small-scale research project entitled ‘Bright Challenge’ which we initiated with the support of funding from the Higher Education Funding Council. The rationale for the project, the underlying principles involved in the design of curriculum materials and the results, as evaluated by both the participating teachers and ourselves, are described. At the outset, we would like to indicate that the project was conducted as a pilot study and what we are about to share with the readers needs to be considered within that context. However, the contents of this paper may act as a documentary, initiate some awareness and generate discussion on the topic of curriculum provision for higher ability pupils. Background There is a noticeable shortage of published books and articles in the United Kingdom on the topic of curriculum provision for higher-ability children. It is unlikely that the shortage is due to everyone considering all is well with curriculum provision for such children. In fact, some official reports and surveys have suggested that the work set for higher-ability pupils often does not match their potential. One of the more recent surveys (HMI 1992) states this concern in its opening paragraph: ‘Very able pupils in maintained primary and secondary schools are often insufficiently challenged by the work they are set.’ Whilst the above comment is referring to curriculum provision in general, other reports (Ofsted 1994, 1995) have drawn our attention to inadequate provision in specific curriculum areas, such as mathematics. We have also been contacted, on numerous occasions, by many schools after their Ofsted inspections had highlighted shortcomings in curriculum differentiation for able pupils. Our experience of working with higher-ability pupils, who had been selected as ‘gifted’ or ‘very able’ by their parents or teachers, has suggested that there is often an assumption that identification must always be a prerequisite to provision, and in many cases such provision was targeted exclusively towards the selected group. 66 As experienced teachers and in-service training providers, this approach seemed somehow deficient and made us feel uneasy. We considered the types of identification procedures used. First we focused on the role of IQ tests and other standardised tests in the identification process. How helpful are these? In some instances teachers were being pressurised, by parents who had had their children tested, for extra curriculum provision. Recent developments in the thinking about pupils’ abilities challenges a single dimension of intelligence, such as an IQ score, being used to classify pupils as ‘very able’. One of the significant implications of the theory of the existence of multiple intelligences in children, put forward by Gardner (1983, 1993), is that for effective identification of specific talent to take place, one has to provide opportunities in the classroom for the detection of aptitudes in various areas of ability. The second and a popular method of identification is through teacher observation. Again, is this a simple process? Although we have complete faith in the commitment and extreme desire on the part of teachers to identify talent in the classroom, we felt that in order to make effective judgements of pupils’ learning needs and aptitudes, appropriate learning opportunities have to be offered to pupils. Unnecessary repetitive work and a dull curriculum diet offered by some commercially produced textbook schemes are, we felt, unlikely to encourage higher-ability pupils to show their specific talents or exhibit their true potential. What emerges, then, from a consideration of both forms of identification is that a suitable curriculum needs to be in place for effective provision for able pupils. Our own thinking and development of ideas relating to aspects of identification and provision for higher-ability pupils are described in more detail in our recent publication (Koshy and Casey 1997). Our survey of existing resources to support teachers in the education of higher-ability pupils showed a big gap in any form of guidance in curriculum provision We set up the ‘Bright Challenge’ project to make a small contribution to curriculum provision for very able pupils. Support for Learning © NASEN 1997. Vol. 12 No. 2 (1997) Aims of the project Our aim was to design curriculum materials, initially for Key Stage 2 pupils, based on a set of principles and to monitor their effectiveness through trialling the activities in normal classroom settings. The activities were to be trialled in their classrooms by class teachers in order to gauge the extent to which the needs of higher-ability pupils could be met within their classrooms and schools by using such materials. Additionally, we hoped that the principles we employed in designing curriculum materials may offer a framework for teachers, so that they may be able to use these principles in their everyday planning. Theoretically, we were aware of the model of higher levels of thinking offered by Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy and of Resnick’s (1987) principles of what is involved in being engaged in higher-order thinking skills. Many of the principles we adopted for the design of materials, however, were based on our experience of working with many higher-ability pupils and their teachers on in-service programmes. Trialling of activities Twelve schools were selected to trial the activities. Six were from London and its suburbs, selected with a representative mix of socioeconomic factors, and the other six were selected from other parts of the country. Teachers from the six London schools attended the university once a month for six months and provided feedback on the activities in both written and verbal form. Children’s work was also collected to provide evidence of the effectiveness of the learning materials. It was hoped that the monitoring of the trialling of the activities by teachers in their classrooms would provide additional feedback as to the effectiveness of the ideas and the feasibility of their use. Designing the activities Activities were designed in the three core curriculum areas – English, mathematics and science – as well as in cross-curricular contexts. Our concept of designing curriculum materials suitable for higher-ability pupils incorporated the following principles. • All the activities were designed in such a way that they offered children intellectual challenge. Assuming that children would have acquired the necessary facts, skills and knowledge base from being taught the National Curriculum, we felt that children could be introduced to more advanced concepts. This would extend their understanding of more basic concepts as well as encourage them to think about ideas in more depth. An example of this was a mathematics activity entitled ‘Mathematics in Spiderland’ which introduced children to working in a different base other than base 10, involving them in calculations in a different base, and designing textbooks Support for Learning © NASEN 1997. Vol. 12 No. 2 (1997) and times-tables for ‘Spider children’ in base 8. This experience provided them with opportunities to analyse and study the structure of our base 10 numeration system and to acquire an increased understanding of number operations. Early exposure to advanced concepts was a feature of many of the activities designed. In the English activities, opportunities were provided for analysing the structure and spelling of words and styles of presentation. In mathematics, pupils were exposed to early ideas of simultaneous solutions and investigation of cryptarithms, isomorphic structures, generalisations and proof. Scientific investigations included ecological projects making pupils aware of the interdependence of organisms. • Motivation plays a significant role in the learning process. The activities were set in contexts which we believed to appeal to children. We were aware that higher-ability pupils may be capable of understanding more complex concepts than those normally offered to others in their peer group, but we felt that providing them with activities designed for older pupils may not be the best way forward. Our belief was confirmed by instances where pupils, who had previously rejected ideas from textbooks – designed for age groups several years ahead – and from distance learning materials, were motivated by the contexts offered by the Bright Challenge activities. For example, the activity ‘Designing a dream bedroom’, which invited pupils to spend a budget of £600, choosing items from a catalogue, encouraged 7-year-old pupils to seek help at home and in school to enable them to work out discounts and percentages. There was evidence of their learning something about advanced concepts, such as optimisation, as a result of the motivation offered by the context. Teachers reported a high level of interest amongst children and their willingness to take Bright Challenge projects home and involve ‘friends, family and the community’ in completing the projects. • Opportunities for creative thinking and for asking questions such as ‘what if …’ were provided within the activities. Projects such as writing sequels for their favourite books or advertising new books in the library were offered as alternatives to the more routine class task of writing book reviews. These, according to trialling teachers, were responded to by children with surprisingly creative pieces of work. Designing and writing books on the ‘human body’ for a younger audience as an extension project to the National Curriculum produced some ‘stunning products’, as one trialling teacher put it. • Cross-curricular possibilities were explored. This was achieved in two ways. For activities which had their starting points in one curriculum area, opportunities for interdisciplinary investigations were provided. Secondly, cross-curricular ‘extended’ projects were designed on themes such as ‘Town planning’, and ‘Designing summer school programmes for an international audience’ which necessitated children’s crossing subject boundaries. Some of the extended projects took several weeks to complete. Within these extended projects teachers also had opportunities to take into account children’s individual interests and suggest individual enquiries. 67 • Through the activities, children were encouraged to be engaged in purposeful research as an alternative to the chore of copying passages from books for class topics with no apparent purpose. An example of this was when they were asked to prepare a report on a newly discovered planet. Teachers who trialled this activity described the conscientiousness with which children conducted research and the responsibility they seemed to have felt to report facts correctly and with accuracy. They were involved in many hours of research on the solar system and producing fact sheets. • Conscious attempts were made to make the activities open-ended and to include opportunities for higher levels of thinking – analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The children responded enthusiastically to tasks such as designing crossword puzzles and quiz programmes and investigating food labels. Opportunities were provided for children to reflect on their work and achievements as well as to consider their strengths and weaknesses with a view to improving performances and reviewing learning styles. • As most of the activities offered the potential for extended work, teachers were asked to consider whether they could be used as part of homework. Commentary Although we are aware that the nature of our sample does not make it possible to make any strong generalisations about our findings, the features that emerged from the trials may be of interest to teachers and educationists. We present these in the following sections. The activities trialled by the selected teachers, along with other examples of activities designed on the same principles, are published by Stanley Thornes Publishers (Casey and Koshy 1995). Selection of pupils We did not impose any restrictions on the selection of pupils for trialling the activities; this was left entirely to the teacher. Initially, most of the trialling teachers presented the activities to selected groups of able pupils, but as time progressed, they widened the group and in some cases the activities were given to most children in the class. Differentiation occurred through outcome rather than by task. In some cases teachers adapted the activities in such a way that the starting points were made simpler so that more pupils could participate in the activities. Pupils were moved on to higher levels of the task if they showed interest and capability to be engaged in more sophisticated enquiries. All the activities were found suitable for group work, the nature and composition of the groups being dictated by classroom circumstances. Initially, the Bright Challenge project was seen by pupils to be ‘special’ for able pupils, but as time progressed, they were seen as exciting projects which could be tackled by anyone who showed commitment and persistence. The model offered by the activities in the Bright Challenge project suggests a practical strategy for curriculum differentiation. 68 Motivation There was much evidence of positive responses from pupils towards the Bright Challenge projects when the contexts in which they were set appealed to the children. In some cases activities were rewritten due to the discovered inaccessibility of the contexts of some themes for Key Stage 2 children. Where the activities were motivating and considered fun, there was much discussion and sharing of ideas between pupils and between pupils and teacher. Requests for homework were made by pupils who found the ideas interesting and they worked hard to achieve higher levels of learning. This calls into question the belief and recommendations of certain groups of people who recommend that learning materials can be imported from higher age groups and given to younger children in order to accelerate their learning. We feel that accelerated learning involves more than the provision of accelerated content; it needs other factors such as student motivation, creativity and interest to be taken into account. Although we did not suggest any time restrictions for these activities, it was reported that the lack of time restrictions contributed to much of their effectiveness. When their interest level was raised, most of the higher-ability pupils worked for longer periods. This suggests that teachers may need to look at their class work-plans and timetables to see if sufficient time is being allowed for fruitful and rewarding investigations. Provision in the classroom One of the most significant features that emerged from the project was the realisation of the trialling teachers that activities can be designed, based on the existing curriculum, in such a way that the needs of the most able children can be met within the classroom. Being aware of levels of thinking and the role of appropriate questioning in curriculum design and the use of suitable teaching styles, most higher-ability pupils can be sufficiently challenged and intellectually stimulated within their classroom. A word of caution here. We need to acknowledge that the trialling teachers must have undergone a period of reflection about issues in curriculum design as a result of their involvement in the project. Although we have had positive responses from teachers not involved in the piloting as to the effectiveness of the activities, we feel that all teachers need to be offered support in considering ways of designing activities which take into account the needs of the higher achievers in their class, an area which may often be neglected as there is a belief amongst some people that higher-ability pupils can often ‘look after’ themselves. The reality is far from this, as our experience has often shown. Identification through provision Perhaps the particular part of the feedback we received from teachers who trialled the Bright Challenge activities which pleased us most was their acknowledgement that, by Support for Learning © NASEN 1997. Vol. 12 No. 2 (1997) observing pupils being engaged in the activities, they were able to identify pupils’ strengths, aptitudes, their work habits and personal styles of learning. They were pleasantly surprised by the emergence of cases of pupils who had hitherto not been identified as ‘very able’. Examples given were of 8-year-old Daniel who displayed ‘outstanding’ talents in designing brochures and l0-year-old Melanie who had a ‘stunning’ collection of books and materials on ecology which she brought out after being motivated by the ecology project in the class. Janice, another 8-year-old, was reported to have been entering mathematics competitions in the United States, unknown to her school, using the ‘Maths in Spiderland’ activity as the basis of one of her competition entries. There are implications here for identification of higher abilities. Reflecting on the role of IQ test scores in identifying ability, one is often saddened by the fact that a pupil and his or her parents may be given a high score of potential, by means of a test, and yet no provision is made in curriculum terms. The situation is analogous to a ballet-dancing pupil being told that she has the ‘potential’ to be a ‘world class dancer’ and then being told that there are no facilities to offer her suitable training and experience. Appropriate curriculum provision for higher-ability pupils is important whichever form of identification is used. Our study shows that appropriate curriculum provision not only meets the cognitive needs of our bright children, but it may also offer an effective method of identification. Is there a case here for diverting funds used for testing to providing funds to offer support to teachers, training them in effective curriculum differentiation? Teacher expectation Teachers who took part in the Bright Challenge project reported that the intellectual challenge and research opportunities offered by the activities encouraged them to undertake their own research and extend their knowledge base, which in turn enhance their expectations of themselves. With their own learning and acquired knowledge enhanced, they claimed to have begun to demand higher standards of performance and achievement from their pupils. This resulted in better work, in both quality and quantity, being produced by most children. Conclusion The commentary provided above suggests that appropriate curriculum design which takes the needs of higher-ability pupils into account may not only enhance the quality of Support for Learning © NASEN 1997. Vol. 12 No. 2 (1997) provision for able pupils, it can also enhance the quality of teaching and learning of all pupils. Although not directly related to the project, one observation which is worth making here is that all six teachers who trialled the materials became very excited about considering the various facets of educating very able pupils during the six months. Three of the six chose aspects of identification of and provision for able pupils as topics for their Master’s degree dissertations. Another teacher, fairly new to the profession, obtained a research grant in spite of substantial competition, from the Teachers Training Agency for action research and dissemination of findings for work to be carried out in her school, about meeting the needs of able pupils. In her application she had acknowledged the influence of her involvement in the Bright Challenge trialling exercise. Bright Challenge activities are being more widely used now by teachers, either as they are or as adapted ideas. A Key Stage 3 pack on English is also being published by Stanley Thornes Publishers. Much of the work we are carrying out is based at the Brunel Able Children’s Education Centre which is the first such centre dedicated to research and in-service support for teachers to be set up in a British university. References BLOOM, B. S. (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Book 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay. CASEY, R. and KOSHY, V. (1995) Bright Challenge Key Stage 2. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. GARDNER, H. (1983) Frames of Mind. New York: Basic Books. GARDNER, H. (1993) Multiple Intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books. HMI (1992) The Education of Very Able Pupils in Maintained Schools. London: HMSO. KOSHY, V. and CASEY, R. (1997) Effective Provision for Able and Exceptionally Able Children. London: Hodder and Stoughton. OFSTED (1994) Science and Mathematics in Schools. London: HMSO. OFSTED (1995) Mathematics: A review of inspection findings, 1993/1994. London: HMSO. RESNICK, L. B. (1987) Education and Learning to Think. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Correspondence Valsa Koshy The Brunel Able Children’s Education Centre Brunel University 300 St Margaret’s Road Twickenham Middlesex TWl lPT 69