Pupil Mobility

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Essex LEA

Mobility patterns in Essex

Essex schools experience mobility generated by the full range of factors including movement for employment or housing reasons, families fragmenting or seeking asylum, school exclusions and transfers, travellers' migration and armed services deployment. Many coastal areas of Essex experience high levels of movement of low income families from urban areas, seeking seasonal work. Some primary schools are experiencing well over 50% pupil turnover annually. Some schools serve populations almost exclusively from the armed forces and may experience 100% turnover of pupils every two or so years, often in the middle of an academic year.

Schools crossing the 10% pupil mobility threshold in any one financial year trigger a 'turbulence' allowance. The number of schools with this level of mobility is increasing and so creating funding pressures.

The LEA's approach to target setting and getting

In February 2001, Ofsted reported that Essex has ensured that schools, which generally have well-developed systems for assessing pupils' attainment at all stages and for predicting targets, are appropriately challenged through the target setting process. The LEA provides very effective support to schools on the use of performance data for the monitoring and raising of standards, focusing planning and as evidence for research-based school improvement initiatives.

Peter Dudley, principal adviser in Essex, describes the LEA's approach to target setting in schools with high mobility:

"Our approach to target setting is based on consultation with all our schools, research carried out in 22 of them and further work by the LEA. A common approach is used with both 'stable' and 'high mobility' schools because we believe that taking account of high levels of mobility in some schools should not inhibit an LEA from challenging all schools. Our general expectation is that most pupils should progress at a rate of two thirds of a level most years - the average rate in our more effective schools - unless there are very good reasons why not. Although we have not gone as far as to call this entitlement to progress, it does have an element of entitlement to consistently high expectation. It is the aggregate of these pupil level targets which becomes the school target.

"Then, we believe that target setting only works when 'target getting' follows. It is what teachers and pupils do with the targets and the information which led to them that leads to higher pupil attainment and improved progress.

Target setting and mobility

First we are clear about how targets and results will be handled:

• because quality in the target setting process is vital, our link advisers are trained and re-trained annually;
  
• link advisers and headteachers invariably discuss targets for individual pupils and the impact of mobility on the likely outcomes;
  
• high mobility schools are helped in setting and tracking annual or more frequent targets for pupils;
  
• our end of key stage analysis of performance against targets takes account of mobility by using pupil level data to help schools assess their influence on the performance of more and/or less mobile pupils; and
  
• we try to ensure that parents and the wider community are clear about the shortcomings of performance tables through governor training programmes, press releases and other publications.

Then we offer the training and support to back up our expectations:

• there is annual training in target setting for new headteachers and those wanting a refresher;
  
• training for subject leaders, through the literacy, numeracy and KS3 strategies, also supports our general approach;
  
• schools and link advisers are provided with a range of tools to support the process:
  
  • pupil level matched 'value added' analyses showing the school's performance in terms of matched pupil progress data.
    
  • banks of individual targets broken down into thirds of levels to support teachers and pupils in planning for progress, identifying where to go next and how to 'close the gap' between where a child is now and where s/he needs to be.
    
  • 'Target Tracker', LEA software which holds within-year pupil level assessment and target data and helps to set targets for individual pupils and to track their progress against them.

Finally, we identify and share effective practice:

"Our more effective schools with high mobility believe that pupils entering mid key stage are as entitled as anyone else to make good progress from their entry point and for as long as they are in the school, so shorter-term targets are at the heart of their work. Our approach to thirds of level targets has helped many of them to bridge the gap between long-term statutory targets and the shorter-term periods which teachers and pupils are working with, in classrooms, in relation to teaching and assessment for learning. Our monitoring shows that these schools:

• have office and classroom systems well geared to information flow and so make immediate use of any information they receive from the former school;
  
• assess pupils - particularly in the key skills - immediately they arrive - and set shorter term targets which are shared with pupil and parents;
  
• rapidly construct a programme based on this information and share the expectations with the pupils and parents;
  
• review targets for within-year progress (by the term or the half year);
  
• frequently report to parents on progress and targets with summary mid year reports to complement the annual report to parents;
  
• develop an ethos where all pupils recognise the pressures mobility places on the learning of some and respond with a shared sense of responsibility;
  
• involve all staff in shared planning, marking, moderating and reviewing of progress with good use of ICT to speed analysis and reporting;
  
• involve subject leaders and senior management in a rigorous programme of data rich monitoring of teaching, learning and pupil progress; and
  
• review the progress made by any pupil at point of leaving, with a judgement about how effectively the pupil has progressed at the school and a commitment to provide the best information possible to the receiving school.

"In addition, where high mobility schools have taken part in our transition project, agreeing attainment and target levels between teachers across each of the 'key stage boundaries', the impact on standards and progress has been, in some instances, dramatic."

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