Student Mobility: Staff Professional Development Resource Pack

1. Student Mobility:Staff Professional Development Resource Pack A resource from the Let’s Stay Put Project

2. Program • Module 1 • Understanding mobility • Module 2 • Responding to mobility: A whole school approach • Module 3 • Classroom responses to mobility

3. Module 1Understanding mobility Some background

4. An overview of Module 1: Understanding mobility • Mobility – a global issue • Mobility in Australia • A focus on the mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students • Defining student mobility • Previous research • Impact of mobility • International measures and responses to mobility • Reasons for mobility

5. Mobility is a global issue… • E.g. Europe – Mobikid project

6. Mobility is a global issue • UK – Pupil Mobility project • Local authority responses • Chester County Council • Islington Schools • USA - campaigns through many local school authorities and humanitarian agencies • National Centre for Homeless Education • Columbus Education

7. The picture in Australia • Over 7 million adults moved house at least once in the five years between the 2001 and 2006 Australian census. Representing 40% of those that responded. (ABS, 2006)

8. A focus on the mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students… • Overdue • Very little research has examined the nature of Indigenous temporary mobility in and through urban environments (Prout & Yap, 2010, p.i) • Underestimated and until now invisible • ‘Census snapshots’ do not capture frequency or duration of movements • Movement across education sectors and systems has not been well captured • Inconsistent notions of student mobility • Inconsistent measures of mobility. Lack of comparability across schools, systems and jurisdictions (Prout, 2008)

9. A focus on the mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students • Requires innovative responses • It is […] unproductive to generate prescriptive and generic policy responses. • These responses may range from simple administrative adjustments — such as improving intra-departmental communication and record transferring systems — to radical restructuring of the style and methods of service delivery (Prout, 2008, p.23)

10. Defining Student Mobility • Mobility is “students making non-promotional school change” (Rumberger, 2003) • Movement of students “into and out of schools at times other than the usual ones for joining and leaving” (McAndrew & Power, 2003) • Students who have made more than two school moves in a three year period (DEST & DoD, 2002). • After day 8

11. Previous Research:Impact of Mobility on Students • More than 3 schools combined with other risk factors– such as low socio-economic status – increases likelihood of school failure. • Mobility within the school yearis most disruptive to learning – particularly in the early years.

12. Impact of mobility • “Different mobile groups will place different demands on the school, but the impact is not entirely negative as new arrivals may increase the diversity of the community, enhance the commitment to learning, and possibly raise levels of achievement.” (DfES, 2003)

13. International Benchmarking:Student Mobility Britain • Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances • Pupil Mobility Project: 2003-present Mobility Index: Entries post census date (Joiners) + Exits post census date (Leavers) Census date enrolment x100

14. Assessing the extent of mobility:Mobility Index Britain • Index of 20 - High mobility • Index of 35 - Very high mobility Policy response: Schools resourced to support student mobility when index is greater than 20 • Additional staff – “Mobility Induction Workers” • Additional funding

15. Understanding Reasons for Mobility

16. Understanding the reasons for mobility • Well understood motivations • ‘Strategic’ • ‘Rational’ • ‘Upward’ mobility • Highly planned • Not frequent • Less well understood motivations • ‘Reactive’ • Varying frequency • ‘Spontaneous’ • ‘Chaotic’

17. Reasons for mobility Top SIX reasons • Family circumstances • Housing • Employment • Seeking services • Choice • Confrontation • Some motivations well understood: ‘makes it easier to talk about’ • Some motivations less visible/masked: ‘not so easy to talk about’ • Some motivations more positively perceived than others

18. Your turn • Who is highly mobile? • Why? • What characteristics & needs exist?

19. “Let our schools and our classrooms be that one place in a child’s life that is positive…Just one place where somebody believes they can be something great and where we can get them to see that something truly great resides in them. Let’s give them one place that is positive, and let’s believe in them to the extent that…in spite of the challenges and complexities of their home context…they start to believe in themselves.” Dr Chris Sarra, 2007

20. Module 2Responding to mobility: A whole school approach The Let’s Stay Put project

21. An overview of Module 2Responding to mobility: A whole school approach • Responding to mobility through the Let’s Stay Put project • The impact of mobility • Responding to mobility through an additional resource • Responding to mobility through whole school and community awareness • Supporting literacy and numeracy learning

22. How has the LSP project addressed issues of student mobility? • Develop a whole school approach – this is critical • Support the development of a deep understanding about mobility in the school – particularly mobility amongst Indigenous students • Trial a resource: ‘MST’ in the school • Develop ‘explicit’ approaches to teaching and learning of mobile students, particularly literacy and numeracy teaching.

23. Addressing mobility: Its impact • School administration: time factor • Non-mobile students: achievement factor (significantly lower test scores in schools with high mobility rates) • School budgets: fiscal factor (Rumberger, 2003) • Classrooms: ‘chaos’ factor

24. The ‘chaos’ factor: What teachers told us What happens now... Before arrival in class • Rarely get any notice of arrival • At best – very short notice • Appears at class door with Deputy Principal/ Principal/Teacher Aide • May get some basic information on first day – more likely in the first few weeks

25. Addressing mobility through an additional resource Mobility Support Teacher • Teacher • Position description loosely based on UK Mobility Induction Worker • Employed as 0.5 or fulltime • Must have flexibility in timetable

26. Addressing mobility: Role of the MST • Support for schools and students and their families. • Focus on improved transitions for mobile students • Building belonging for new students • Building school and teacher capacity • Orderly process for enrolment • Support the timely assessment of learning needs • Support classroom teachers work with mobile students • Foster community partnerships: particularly with Indigenous communities • Focus on spreading the message of ‘staying put’ for one year to improve learning outcomes • Support mobile students – especially those at risk (multiple movers)

27. Addressing mobility:Evidence the MST role works School 1 • “Amazing impact - it’s no big deal now to get new kids” • Admin can deal with/attend to strategic planning • “High impact” • “Much less tense” • Process of testing benefits everyone • Transitions seem to be more successful and quicker • Overwhelmingly positive School 2 • Students appear less stressed when entering classroom • Timely dissemination of data • Class placement are more considered • Encouraged people to talk about mobility • Improved quality of information to teachers • We can do something to meet the needs of mobile students rather than it is out of our control • “A godsend” • Structured procedures

28. Addressing mobility through whole school community awareness… School Leadership • Lead a culture of ‘high expectations’ for mobile Indigenous students • Instigate standardised enrolment procedure(s) • Build a culture of belonging • Promote deprivatisation of teacher practice – enable work of the Mobility Support Teacher

29. Addressing mobility through whole school community awareness Community Engagement • Ensure community leaders engagement with project • Develop partnerships/ dialogue with key feeder schools • Inter-agency collaboration – housing/family/child safety – to promote stability message • Target the development of relationships with mobile Indigenous families

30. Addressing mobility: whole school community awareness Teacher Professional Development • Ensure ‘high expectations’ for mobile Indigenous students • Engage with ‘explicit pedagogies’ for planning • Develop curriculum planning that considers potential new arrivals/gaps in learning • Engage with family: ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors • Encourage sense of belonging: build relationships

31. Whole School Literacy and Numeracy for Mobility • Teachers (and/or other staff) need to enact strategies for quickly and effectively diagnosing, for gathering knowledge of, the literate/numerate repertoires that students bring with them when they enter our classrooms – educators need diagnostic and assessment tools to do so • It will give teachers a ‘baseline’, knowledge of the individual and her/his literacy/numeracy repertoire and future learning needs, from which to work

32. Diagnostic Assessment • 1st step - consider purpose of assessment: • reporting & monitoring • school /system or child/parent • inform classroom practice - if so, how?

33. Diagnostic Assessment:Psycholinguistic Paradigm Writing Assessment Checking: • Handwriting • Spelling skills and strategies • Writing strategies Reading Assessment Checking: • Phonic knowledge and skills • Phonological subskills • Sight vocabulary • Comprehension • Fluency

34. Diagnostic Assessment Socio-Cultural Paradigm • Is the choice of knowledge and skills selected for assessment tasks such that it ensures equity for all students? That is, that assessment does not privilege one group to the exclusion of others. • Teachers should consider the following: • The cultural specificity of how the assessment task is framed • The linguistic codes and conventions of the assessment • The cultural specificity of content knowledge (Luke et al., 2002, pp. 12-13; Klenowski, 2009) • Does the assessment account for the array of literate/numerate practices acquired by the student from family and community life? For example, cultural and linguistic diversity. That is, does it ‘capture’ what they do bring by way of resources? • Does the assessment account for the linguistic/numeric resources of the student – both those valued by school and those not typically valued by school? That is, does it ‘catch’ them being successful literate/numerate subjects? (see Comber et al., 2001)

35. Oral Language Assessment • Conduct a staff audit – who has undertaken the Indigenous Bandscales Training in the school? How can these staff be utilised to develop strategies/a plan around the oral language assessment of mobile students / of mobile Indigenous students? • Schools can access and make use of experts e.g., ISSU staff.

36. Building Belonging • “Research has shown that students who report high levels of school connectedness also report lower levels of emotional distress, violence, suicide attempts, and drug use.” (Blum & Libbey, 2004, p 231) • “Student welfare and appropriate support was rated by teachers as the most important issue impacting on learning outcomes for students experiencing high levels of mobility.” (DEST & DoD, 2002, p 38)

37. Module 3Classroom responses to mobility A resource from the Let’s Stay Put project

38. An overview of Module 3: Classroom response to mobility • Supporting mobile students – ‘What would you do? Scenarios’ (additional resource located on the Let’s Stay Put website) • Learning achievement and mobile students • What works: Research findings from the Let’s Stay Put project

39. What would you do? • Read the scenario • Consider possible needs for this student and ways you would accommodate him/her in your classroom. • On the bottom of the sheet note your thoughts.

40. Mobility, attendance, engagement, learning achievement • There exists a critical nexus – that of the interrelationship between mobility, attendance, engagement and learning achievement.

41. What Do We Know About Achievement for Mobile Students • Student mobility has often been linked with student achievement in research literature (see Offenberg, 2004; Osher , Morrison& Bailey, 2003; Strand, 2002; Alexander et al, 1996) • Some research suggests that mobile students have a net effect on the continuity of the educational teaching program that impacts all in the classroom (see Simons et al, 2007)

42. What Do We Know About Achievement for Mobile Students? • DEST & DoD (2002) research reported that: • high levels of mobility compound other factors (such as social and emotional concerns or an existing learning difficulty) that have a negative impact on learning outcomes • student learning has an inverse relationship with mobility • the higher the mobility the less likely that learning at age appropriate levels is expected to occur

43. What works: Research findings from the Let’s Stay Put project • Data collected have identified what works in highly mobile contexts. • Data sources • Interviews with teachers • Interviews with principals • Profiles of mobile students • Profiles of non-mobile students • Surveys of students

44. What works: Building belonging • “Research has shown that students who report high levels of school connectedness also report lower levels of emotional distress, violence, suicide attempts, and drug use.” (Blum & Libbey, 2004, p 231)

45. What works: Teacher knowledge of mobility Ask yourself… • What do I know about the schooling history of each student? • What strategies can I utilise to gather this data?

46. What works: Planning for mobility • How is my knowledge (of students’ schooling histories) reflected in my planning? • How will this be visible in the first week of the school year? • In what ways will my long term planning reflect this context

47. What works: Overcoming deficit assumptions “For mobile students, considerable learning has been in the context of ‘somewhere else’, and not in the community or school in which they are currently located. Although it would be very easy for ‘gaps’ in knowledge to be seen as deficits or deficiencies, it is more productive for teachers to recognise that mobile students may have different prior knowledges and different perspectives to the classroom…this diversity can be used as a resource for extending the knowledge of other children about different perspectives and experiences.” (Henderson, 2008, p198)

48. Addressing high mobility: ‘explicit’ approaches • The ACTIVELY EXPLICIT classroom • Classroom organisationVISIBLE and consistent across school • Immediate accommodation for range of learner levels

49. Explicit teaching and learning for mobile communities • Teachers need to specifically articulate what has to be learnt and what has been learnt. (Comber et al, 2001) • Implicit approaches are problematic in that they often leave the children to ‘guess’ or ‘catch on to by chance’ what aspects of literacy are the focus of the lesson. (see Bull & Anstey, 2003; Comber et al, 2001; Edward-Groves, 1998; Freebody, Luke & Gunn, 1995)

50. What works: Team teaching • Team teaching provides opportunities for • Spending time with arriving students and families • Timely assessment of learning needs