Stand Out Boys Project (SOBP)
This project targets boys in reception, who ‘stand out’ and who find
it difficult to settle into school. The aim is to help them develop the
skills they need to get the most from the classroom and reduce their
risk of underachievement.
Background
Girls continue to outperform boys at all levels of education in the UK
from foundation to higher education (ONS, 2011); at the extremes boys
are four times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than
girls (DfE, 2011) and at least nine times more likely to have a learning
difficulty.
This isn’t all boys (Connolly, 2004), more than half of the top 20% of
achievers at all levels of education are boys. It is at the other end they are
over-represented with more than three quarters of boys in the bottom
20%.
Primary schools are reporting an increase in the number of children
arriving without very basic skills, whether this is language (National
Literacy Trust, 2005), or being potty trained (ATL & ERIC, 2012). There
have been concerns about the level of primary school exclusions since
the mid-1990s (see Parsons, 1994, and Ofsted, 2009) and more recently
the young age of those excluded (TES, 2008 and Guardian, 2009).
The commonly held view in primary education is that boys come into
school trailing girls (particularly in communication and fine motor skills),
and that boys ‘catch-up’ when they are aged 8 and 9 (Bidulph, 2003 and
Palmer, 2009). However, ours (and others) observations suggest that
some boys are not ‘catching up,’ with a significant minority leaving
primary lacking important skills sets they will need for secondary and
beyond (DfE, 2012).
In spite of these trends, boys underachievement is still primarily
addressed post-11 (see Lloyd, 2010), this project aims to prevent
underachievement by targeting boys that exhibit characteristics that
may put them at risk of underachieving.
Early assessments of child development can be a reliable indicator of
future outcomes. So, for example, scores at 22 months can be accurate
predictors of educational outcomes at 26 years (Plewis, 2004) and
assessments of boys aged three have indicated those at risk of criminal
convictions (Hawkins et al, 2000).
Analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (2012) shows big differences in
cognitive development between children from high and low income
families at the age of three, with this gap widening by age five. There are
similarly large gaps in young children’s social and emotional wellbeing at
these ages.
While there is of course a risk of labelling children before they are
walking and talking, these early assessments can be very effective
indicators for the need of early intervention. Feinstein and Bynner
(2008) found that those children who were poor performers at the age
of five, who managed to become high performers by the age of 10, were
as successful in adulthood (looking at factors such as educational
success, wage levels and criminality) as if they had never been
underperforming at age five.
Stand Out Boys Project
This project targets boys in reception who ‘stand out’ because of their
behaviour and find it difficult to settle and learn. Schools are seeing
more boys who are unwilling (or unable) to take instructions; have low
communication skills; easily ‘wound up’ by others; often distracted;
over-physical and seemingly unable to show self-control. There can be
up to three boys in each reception class who exhibit some of these
characteristics.
We are working on the basis that many of the targeted boys will require
an intervention, if not now then later, so our view is why wait? We have
been identifying boys that ‘stand out’; engaging their parents and
teachers, and offering both strategies to develop boys learning skills.
We have found parents very willing to engage, to enable their son’s to
settle into school and teachers have valued the strategies to support
their classroom behaviour management. It has helped that we have
previously developed a series of strategies that work effectively with
boys, which we have been offering to both parents and teachers.
We have found the intervention has taken 3-6 months to bring about
significant changes in the targeted boy’s behaviour and as a result seen
them able to make the transition into school, and engage actively with
their learning.
Highlights of the evaluation report include:
“This evaluation provides good evidence that SOBP represents a feasible,
plausible, acceptable and accessible intervention which has positive
impact on children who stand out in early years education. The
evaluation shows implementation of the project to time and to projected
scale. That is, it engaged more than the projected target of 30 children in
three primary schools. There is evidence that SOBP may be associated
with raising stand out children’s engagement and attainment at school
from below average expectation for their age to around average.
With respect to other expected outcomes, this evaluation has also
demonstrated positive impact for parents in terms of perceptions of
increases in their confidence, skills and understanding to address their
children’s behavioural issues.
There are also strong indications that teachers and teaching assistants
have an increased understanding of, and skills to manage the behaviour
of children who ‘stand out’.
SOBP is structured around a tripartite intervention which provides
parents with advice and practical strategies which serve to address
issues faced by children both at home and school, teachers with
strategies and support to settle the stand out children in class, and
intervention directly with children in the context of the classroom.
This evaluation suggests that the predication underpinning this
approach, that effective, coordinated intervention is possible and that
changes effected at home have a discernable impact on standing out at
school is tenable”.
While we have been developing this work over the last three years, the
funding from The Paul Hamlyn Foundation has enabled us to deliver in
three Lewisham schools (South East London), targeting 30 boys from
September 2012 to July 2013 and evaluating its impact on Boys, parents,
teachers and the schools themselves (evaluation report and other
materials are available at www.boysdevelopmentproject.org.uk).
We have an evaluated intervention that will reduce the risk of targeted
boys underachieving and we are disseminating the finding through
seminars targeted at primary head teachers.
A Boys Development Project initiative funded by The Paul Hamlyn
Foundation (September 2012 to September 2014).
References
Association of Teachers and Lecturers and Education and Resources for Improving Childhood
Continence (2012) Survey of 848 primary school staff in the UK. Reported in the
Independent Newspaper, 7th February 2012, under the headline ‘More children 'not toilet
trained' by school age’.
Bidulph S (1998): Raising Boys, Thorsens, London.
Connolly P (2004): Boys and Schooling in the Early Years, Routledge Falmer, London
Department of Education DfE (2011) Permanent and Fixed Period Exclusions from Schools
in England 2009/10.
Department for Education (2012) Pupil behaviour in schools in England. Education Standards
Analysis and Research Division. Research Report DFE-RR218.
Feinstein, l and Bynner, J (2008). “Mobility in Pupils’ Cognitive Attainment During School
Life” in Oxford Review of Economic quoted in Gross J. Getting in early: primary schools and
early intervention. The Smith Institute and The Centre for Social Justice, 2008.
Guardian (2009) Primary schools suspend 14 violent under-fives every day. Rachel Williams,
31 December 2009.
Hawkins, D. Herrenkohl, T.I. Farrington, D.P. Brewer, D. Catalano, R.F. Harachi, T. and
Cothern, L. (2000) Predictors of Youth Violence. Juvenile Justice Bulletin, U. S. Department of
Justice. April, 2000
Lloyd (2010), Boys Underachievement: A literature review. Young Men and Violence Project,
Ulster University.
Millenium Cohort Study (2012) The Age 11 Study. Centre for Longitudinal Study.
Ofsted (2009) The exclusion from school of children aged four to seven.
Palmer, S (2009) 21st Century Boys. Orion, London.
Parsons, C (1994). Excluding Primary School Children. London. Family Policy Studies Centre.
Plewis, I ed. (2004) Millennium Cohort Study First Survey: Technical Report on Sampling 3rd
Edition June 2004
Times Educational Supplement, 12th May 2008 Rise in primary exclusions.
The Boys’ Development Project (CIC) designs and develops effective
projects and programmes targeted at boys and their families; provides
consultancy and training to professionals and carries out research,
evaluations & investigations.
Contact details
Project lead: Trefor Lloyd 07788781759 & tlloydbdp@btinternet.com.
Boys Development Project, 320 Commercial Way, London SE15 1QN.
Website: www.boysdevelopmentproject.org.uk
Funded by: