Disaffected Pupils Research Articles

Exploring and challenging pupil disaffection: an evaluation of a motivational interviewing-based intervention delivered by paraprofessionals

Research suggests motivational interviewing (MI) techniques can be useful in educational settings for improving motivation in disaffected pupils. This exploratory mixed methods study sought to investigate whether implementing an MI-based programme through school-based paraprofessionals would be effective in improving pupil motivation. Five pupils identified as disaffected took part in five sessions of a MI-based intervention delivered by paraprofessionals within one high school setting. All of the pupils completed pre- and post-intervention measures of school-based motivation. The paraprofessionals involved in programme delivery took part in pre-intervention training; and post-intervention were given an opportunity to express their views about the usefulness of the programme and practicalities of implementation during a focus group. Results showed that although the paraprofessionals expressed positive views about the effectiveness of the intervention, these observations were not necessarily supported by quantitative outcomes relating to pupils’ self-reported school-based motivation. Implications for the delivery of MI-based interventions as an individual approach for school-based practice are discussed.

Music as an Education-related Service to Promote Learning and Skills Acquisition

Abstract The aim of this paper is to consider what we know about the ways that transfer can occur in relation to the skills developed through active engagement with music and how they may impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. The paper synthesises indicative research findings and considers the implications for education. Increasing the amount of classroom music within the curriculum can increase social cohesion within class, greater self-reliance, better social adjustment and more positive attitudes, particularly in low ability, disaffected pupils the influence of musical training emerges quickly. The positive effects of engagement with music on personal and social development will only occur if, overall, it is an enjoyable and rewarding experience. The quality of the teaching, the extent to which individuals perceive that they are successful, and whether in the long term it is a positive experience will all contribute to the nature of any personal or social benefits.

Editorial on Educational challenges: ICT-based responses

Education systems around the world face many challenges. Educators, parents and administrators frequently look to ICT for possible solutions but the complexity of most social and technical settings makes it difficult to determine appropriate courses of action. The papers in this Special Edition each concern an educational challenge where ICTs are being used to bring about positive and effective change. Several of the papers focussed on social inclusion while others examine effective teaching. All of them offer implications for pre-service and in-service teacher education in the areas that they address. The International Conference “Addressing educational challenges: the role of ICT” was held in Manchester, UK in July 2012. Authors of highly rated refereed papers were invited to submit extended and updated versions of their work to this special issue. The six papers presented in this section of the special issue are the result of that process. In “Aligning digital and social inclusion: A study of disadvantaged students and computer access” Nicola Yelland & Greg Neal discuss key findings from a study of an Australian programme designed to provide home Internet access for low socioeconomic status families. The findings emphasise that a well-designed programme needs to do far more than simply provide equipment. In “Creating an effective Professional Learning Sessions model on technology integration for a Kenyan school district” Anthony Gioko considers the design of effective ICT related in-service training for teachers in a context where resources are very limited and where high-stakes school evaluations mitigate against change. In “Word Score: a serious vocabulary game for primary school underachievers” Petra Fisser, Joke Voogt, & Mila Bom report on an investigation into the effective use of a serious game with under-achieving and disaffected pupils in a low socioEduc Inf Technol (2013) 18:131–132 DOI 10.1007/s10639-012-9234-8

Staff perceptions of the success of an alternative curriculum: Skill Force

This paper describes staff perceptions of the implementation of an alternative curriculum, Skill Force, for disaffected pupils in the UK. The perceptions of Skill Force and school staff were compared based on data from questionnaires completed by 62 Skill Force and 84 school staff, and interviews with representative samples of each. While the data indicated that the programme had been successful in re-engaging the students with education, the improvement was more marked in relation to the Skill Force programme than the wider school context.

Group cooperation, inclusion and disaffected pupils: some responses to informal learning in the music classroom. Presented at the RIME Conference 2007, Exeter, UK

This paper examines some personal and interpersonal issues concerning group work and informal learning in the music classroom. It analyses data from a recent research project, which adopted and adapted the informal music learning practices of popular musicians, for use in the classroom. The discussion focuses on three aspects of the project. Firstly, it considers the issue of group cooperation, or the ways in which pupils interacted to organise their learning in small groups. This includes various approaches, identified as ‘group learning’, ‘peer-directed learning’ and ‘leadership’. Secondly, the paper addresses the topic of inclusion in relation to how individuals with differing needs and experiences were able to respond to the project, and the extent to which the learning practices allowed differentiation. Thirdly, weaving through the first two strands, the paper examines the inclusion of pupils who had been identified by their teachers as disaffected. This involves considering the roles of imaginative play and personal identity in the music classroom, with relation to both music's cultural delineations and its sonic properties.

Development of a self-observation mastery intervention programme for teacher education

Background: Two goal perspectives predominate in achievement settings such as physical education (PE), namely task involvement, focused on self-referenced effort and improvement, and ego involvement, focused on normative ability comparisons. A task (mastery) involving motivational climate is associated with adaptive motivational responses, whereas an ego (performance) involving climate is associated with more maladaptive motivational outcomes. The task, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, and time (TARGET) structures of achievement situations have been found to influence motivational climate. It is possible to manipulate the TARGET structures in PE to create a mastery involving climate and enhance pupils' motivational responses. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a mastery intervention programme for teacher education, based on self-observation of filmed PE lessons, and assess its effect on the TARGET teaching behaviours that influence motivational climate, pupils' perceptions of the motivational climate, and their cognitive and affective responses. Participants and setting: Four PE student teachers from the same UK university and a total of 80 (37 boys and 43 girls) pupils from two state comprehensive secondary schools in a large city in South Wales. Intervention: A six stage mastery intervention programme was designed based on self-evaluation of the TARGET structures from filmed PE lessons. Research design: Student teachers were each filmed teaching one pre- and one post-intervention lesson to the same class. Data collection: Teaching behaviours were assessed through an observational measure of TARGET behaviours. A questionnaire was administered to measure pupils' pre- and post-intervention perceptions of the motivational climate and cognitive and affective responses. Data analysis: Pre- and post-intervention mean percentage ‘mastery’, ‘performance’ and ‘neither’ teaching behaviours were calculated for the TARGET behaviours. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs was conducted to determine whether any significant differences existed between pre- and post-intervention teaching behaviours. A repeated measures MANOVA was used in order to assess the effect of the intervention on pupils' perceptions of the motivational climate and their cognitive and affective responses. Secondary analysis involved a series of repeated measures ANOVAs for both high and low affect pupils on perceptions of the motivational climate and their cognitive and affective responses. Findings: The mastery intervention programme was successful in fostering more mastery involving teaching behaviours and higher perceptions of mastery involving TARGET behaviours. Contrary to the hypothesis, pupils' perceptions of a performance involving climate increased and there were no significant changes in their cognitive or affective responses. In accordance with the hypothesis, secondary analysis revealed that the more disaffected pupils significantly improved their motivational responses as a result of the intervention programme. Conclusions: A mastery intervention programme based on self-evaluation of teaching behaviours can increase mastery teaching behaviours and improve more disaffected pupils' motivation in PE. When given publicly to individual pupils, teacher feedback on effort and improvement may be perceived as performance rather than mastery involving.

Are we nearly there yet? Curriculum, relationships and disaffected pupils

Are we nearly there yet? Curriculum, relationships and disaffected pupils

Re-engaging disaffected pupils in learning: insights for policy and practice®

This article summarizes findings from an ongoing research and development project, ‘Re-engaging disaffected pupils in learning’, which involves troubled and troublesome students in five London schools, all in challenging urban contexts. It outlines the project’s approach, key features of which include: involving the students themselves as change agents; enabling them to experience learning in an active outdoor education environment; creating time and opportunities for staff to work with their students in new ways; and developing strategies which will remove some of the barriers to learning for disaffected students. The article reviews the impact of the project to date, particularly the ways in which involving pupils in a new learning environment - an outdoor education experience - can transform their views about themselves as learners. It also offers a broader analysis of the implications of developing a change strategy designed to re-engage marginalized pupils from urban schools in learning.

The Educational Inclusion of Disaffected Secondary School Students

The government of the United Kingdom has two top educational policy priorities: ensuring that education is as socially inclusive as possible within mainstream schools and raising students' educational attainment standards. In this study, the author explores a continuing tension between government aspirations as represented by the government's policy concerning the education of disaffected and frequently disruptive students (macro level) and an educational provision intended to address these students' needs in one urban secondary school (micro level). Such students are typically deemed to have special educational needs (SEN), and each school is responsible for identifying and addressing them. Excluding a student from school is widely viewed as the ultimate sanction. The effects of a government policy that encourages inclusion and minimizes exclusion is the focus of this research. In this article, the study is discussed in two parts. In the first part, the author summarizes the challenges presented by the presence of disaffected pupils attending secondary schools in England. In the second part, the author looks at eight students attending a learning support unit established within 1 school to help minimize exclusion. The locus-of-control beliefs of these students; their views concerning three selected “core” subjects in the curriculum; and their attendance before joining the unit, while attending it, and at follow-up are presented.

Impact of ICT and PE on disaffected pupils: Interim Report March 2004

Impact of ICT and PE on disaffected pupils: Interim Report March 2004

Review Article: Learning about Suicide: Who Would Bear the Whips and Scorns of Time?

By way of a review of the reissue of Durkheim's Suicide this article offers an evaluation of Durkheim's monograph in the light of current thinking about suicide and the recent and growing work in Durkheimian studies. The question of moral order is also addressed and is related to social capital theory and the development of communitarianism. The matter of increased and unpredicted suicide rates among young men (especially in prison) in the UK is discussed and linked to educational provision for disaffected pupils and to the development of sustainable individual identity. It is posited that a conceptualization of this problem through Durkheimian sociology can provide a better understanding of the phenomenon than many existing approaches to the issue.

An evaluation of an out-of-school-hours learning project in South Wales

In early 2002, the DfES announced that it intends to relax the National Curriculum for certain sections of the 14 to 19 years school age population to enable less able, disadvantaged and disaffected pupils to be allowed to spend more time on alternative and vocational curriculum initiatives. This article is one of the first to focus on a major out-of-school-hours learning scheme along the lines currently being predicated by the Government. Specifically, this article focuses on the evaluation of the Mountain Ash Partnership Out-of-school-hours Learning Project (MAP) from the pupils' perspective. The MAP Project was supported by a grant of £198,065 from the New Opportunities Fund over a three-year period between 1999 and 2002. Findings support the view that alternative curriculum schemes can significantly change and improve disadvantaged pupils' attitudes towards learning and the way they perceive their schools.

Supporting disaffected pupils: perspectives from thepupils, their parents and their teachers

This paper is based on an evaluation of a three-year HomeOffice funded project that involved placing social work trainedhome–school support workers in secondary schools, whichwere experiencing relatively high rates of pupil disaffection andexclusions. It focuses on process, rather than outcome, data and,in particular, on key issues arising from an analysis of teachers’,parents’/carers’ and pupils’ perspectivesderived mainly from semi-structured interviews. Three themes areaddressed: the school-based casework conducted by the support workers;working with families; and home–school liaison. Supportworkers were uniformly valued for their independence, accessibilityand availability; skill in developing trusting relationships; andsympathetic constructive advice on problems. They were responsiblefor facilitating, often for the first time, joint parent–teacherinteraction in the discussion of pupil problems. Senior managementand pastoral staff found that support workers saved them much timeundertaking tasks – especially pupil counselling and home–schoolliaison – that they would otherwise have had to do themselves.Key factors responsible for the success of the support workers includedtheir social work, rather than education, background and their locationin schools as part of the school staff. The findings are relatedto national policy in England on the potential role of a varietyof support staff, key workers and personal mentors in schools tocombat social and educational exclusion.

Mentoring with Disaffected Pupils

This article focuses on a critical evaluation of progress being made by a number of major innovative schemes which are aimed at raising standards in schools and combating disaffected behaviour. Prominent amongst these schemes are the new Connexions Service, Excellence in Cities and Education Action Zones as well as other major initiatives. This article is the first to pull these strands together by examining their current approaches with disaffected pupils. It concludes by indicating that it is unlikely that these schemes and their mentoring approaches will be fully successful until viable alternative and vocational curriculum schemes are applied nationally for the 14-19 age group.

Information and communication technology as a motivator for disaffected pupils

This article reports on a small-scale action research project undertaken by a teacher in a Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) department in a high school. As a department, we wanted to introduce the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in a way that would successfully enhance the teaching and learning process. MFL is not a particularly popular subject in high schools, so as part of the research programme undertaken by schools in the Norwich Area Schools Consortium (NASC) into identifying the nature of pupil disaffection, the author decided to examine how ICT in the MFL classroom could best be used as a motivator for pupils she had identified as being disaffected with language learning, most of whom were boys. The three stages of research are reported and are followed by reflections on the author's and the department's learning, both directly after the research, and then one year later.

Towards inclusion — our shared responsibility for disaffected pupils

Finding ways of successfully including pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties in mainstream schools remains a significant challenge as we move towards a more inclusive future. In this article, Fiona MacLeod, Upper School Co‐ordinator at Willow Grove School, a special school for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties in Wigan, describes a pilot project designed to promote the reintegration of pupils at transfer to the secondary phase of their education.She reports on a series of successful placements and discusses the factors that may have helped to sustain the inclusion of some of the pupils in her pilot group. The work described in this article was undertaken as part of the author’s MA (special educational needs) programme at Lancaster University.

‘No One’s Told Me to F**k Off!’: Four Years Working with Disaffected Year 11 Pupils (without a PRU)

Since 1994, Merton LEA has developed a distinctive approach to providing education for disaffected pupils in Year 11. The process involved closing the local off-site unit and integrating resources into the authority’s behaviour support service. This article describes the development of what is now called the Year 11 Programme. The discussion focuses on some of the positive outcomes for students and highlights problems associated with the approach. It also provides a commentary on the work in a changing national context.

DEVELOPING A CULTURE FOR POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT

Positive behaviour management is high on the education agenda. This paper will describe the relationship between organisational culture and positive behaviour management. As an example of good practice the authors highlight a secondary Pupil Referral Unit which has undergone a significant change over the last three years leading to an enhanced ability to support, re‐direct and sustain the education of disaffected pupils. Many of the principles discussed are also considered to be of relevance to mainstream education.

Tackling Truancy: an examination of persistent non‐attendance amongst disaffected school pupils and positive support strategies

Abstract The unauthorised non‐attendance of pupils constitutes an increasing area of concern for educationalists and one which has recently received much media attention. This paper seeks to locate the practice of truancy within an educational context, considers a framework for the support of pupils at risk and offers an ‘in‐school’ approach designed to ameliorate the effects of persistent non‐attendance

Disaffected Pupils: reconstructing the sociological perspective

Abstract During the last 25 years, the study of disaffected pupils has been a central topic in the sociology of education. Yet despite its popularity in academic circles the impact of the sociological perspective on policy has been negligible; today the individualised, psychologically orientated approach stills holds sway in most parts of the educational profession. This paper suggests that part of this failure at least is attributable to theoretical inadequacies in the sociological research that has been carried out to date, much of which is based on a one‐dimensional notion of social structure and an over‐rationalistic view of individual psychology. Three key ‘educational structures’ are introduced (the production of ability, the production of values, the production of occupational identity) and a more appropriate model of human personality is outlined.