Making the Grade Key Stage 4 ProjectAdvanced bilingual learners (ABL) constitute the majority of ethnic minority pupils in UK schools. Despite this, there has been relatively little focus on raising the achievement of this particular group and a widespread understanding of this cohort's needs by their educators is still lacking. 'Making the Grade' was a small-scale, school-centred raising achievement project, conducted in eight schools across four London boroughs (Enfield, Ealing, Lewisham and Lambeth), focusing on a target group of Year 10 pupils over two years across a range of subject areas.
The aim of the project was to implement and evaluate the good practice recommendations in the Ofsted report, 'More advanced learners of English as an additional language in secondary schools and colleges' (2003) and develop teachers' understanding of the needs of more advanced bilingual learners. Subject teachers were supported in analysing the language demands of their curriculum area and putting in place strategies to explicitly teach the language structures of the subject.
For an evaluation of the Project download An evaluation of Making the Grade 2006 by Michael Hawkins (Word 143 KB). |
