Research-led Teaching at Berkhamsted
Research at Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted is a school which encourages Action Research, further study and innovation. Many thanks to all who have engaged with this and produced articles for the annual journal. Below are a wide range of articles from contributors, some outside of our organisation – welcome to you and many thanks for insightful and interesting pieces. Every year teachers start afresh with new students but teaching the same subjects, content and exam specifications as the previous year. Engaging with research and innovation keeps us fresh, excited and motivated to develop the young people in our care. We hope you find something in this page to enhance your teaching and create that ‘buzz’ that teaching really can give.
Welcome to issue 1 of Research at Berkhamsted
Welcome to this first issue of Research@Berkhamsted, a joint venture by staff and students that aims to showcase the high quality research and enquiry being undertaken by members of the Berkhamsted community.
The idea for publishing some of this work began about 18 months ago when student research dissertations and staff action research projects were brought into alignment under the umbrella of Research@Berkhamsted and a wealth of inspiring and entertaining projects presented themselves to me. From students exploring the unsatisfactory endings of Jane Austen novels to staff investigating the impact that computer games and mobile phones are having on students in the classroom, there was so much going on which deserved a wider audience.
Action Research projects offer teachers the opportunity – and challenge – to develop new thinking within schools. Research in education has often been the preserve of university academics, and something that teachers read about (time permitting!) in journal articles. Rarely is this research enacted in their own classroom and even less frequently is it shared with colleagues and senior leaders to help guide and shape the development of schools. The research revolution has well and truly begun here at Berkhamsted and we are proud to be in our fifth year of Action Research projects. In this issue we are delighted to present the following four exciting projects: challenging the assumptions behind class sizes and attainment; examining how a fusion of English and Physics could help to narrow the STEM gap; how using feedback in the English classroom can help students independently move forward with their studies; and how school-based counselling services could work online.
It is, of course, not just staff but also students who are conducting research here at Berkhamsted. This publication brings together both teacher and student research with students showcasing their findings from the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). Taken alongside their A levels, the EPQ offers students an invaluable stepping stone between school and university study. Students create, define and explore a project of their own choosing while being guided by an in-house supervisor. The two projects in this issue focus on: dissociative identity disorder; and creativity in the nature vs. nurture debate.
It has been a great pleasure to be part of this publication in both writing and editing the works of many talented teachers and students that we have here at Berkhamsted School. I hope that you enjoy the articles as much as I have.
Mr Nick Cale (editor), May 2019
Director of Data and Research
Welcome to issue 2 of Research at Berkhamsted
Welcome to the second issue of Research at Berkhamsted, our annual publication exhibiting research by staff and students across the Berkhamsted Schools Group. Issue two builds on the strong and innovative foundations established by Nick Cale (Deputy Head, Academic Performance).It seeks to more directly contribute to staff’s continuing professional development, celebrate moves to increase student involvement in teaching and learning, and institute an exciting link with Sevenoaks School in Kent (another like-minded, research-informed school). As well as detailing staff and student research projects, issue two features: a specially commissioned article on Behaviour for Learning(BfL) written by Dr. Roland Chaplain, the University of Cambridge’s Behaviour Management Specialist; an evaluation by last year’s Head Boy of what, – according to evidence, –‘works’ in teaching; and a series of book reviews, including a contribution by Nick Townsend, our Head Boy and part of our student focus group on teaching and learning (the ‘Learning Leaders’).
I am not the first to say that ‘we live in exciting times for educational research’ (Muijs 2020): this is thanks, in part, to a lessening of the gulf between academic (pedagogic) research and the practice of teaching – a ‘bridging’ of the ‘gap’ as Carl Hendrick and Robin Macpherson have recently termed it (2017). Once only the preserve of the so-called ‘ivory tower’, pedagogic research is now increasingly available to teachers– and teachers are increasingly becoming researchers to inform their practice. Rather than fumbling in the dark for strategies and practices founded on fads, myths, and anecdotes, schools and teachers now have opportunities to take more robust, research-informed approaches to what they do. Indeed, Roland Chaplain advocates exactly that in his opening article. ‘What is the most effective way of managing pupil behaviour?’ calls for a research-informed approach to BfL in particular, advising readers to develop ‘a sound knowledge of relevant theory, based on robust empirical research and its application’ to ‘enhance […]teaching and make it easier to explain and justify […] to pupils, parents, and colleagues’.
Chaplain, however, cautions against applying research blindly. Instead he advises us to be certain of ‘its compatibility with a teacher’s beliefs and goals, as well as the school’s context’. This idea of empowering or giving autonomy to the research-informed teacher – as championed in Ann Mroz’s recent Times Educational Supplement editorial (2019) – chimes with the article ‘Learning “learning”: an evaluation of my pedagogical experiences in Berkhamsted School classrooms’. Using what a Sutton Trust Report from 2014 defines as ‘great teaching’, our previous Head Boy appraises teaching and learning at Berkhamsted from a student’s perspective. His bold and novel article interrogates what “great teaching” actually means to question the generalised, one-size-fits-all policies and practices that research-informed pedagogy could bring about in schools. He questions whether ‘great teaching’ is quantifiable just by examination results, or whether other factors should also be taken into account. Teachers’ fostering of ‘intrinsic enjoyment’, creativity, and an enduring zest for learning are some of the other measure she suggests.
The articles by Anna Dickson, Elizabeth Benson and Debbie Cooper, and Eliza Taylor all strike an encouraging balance between traditional and progressive approaches to teaching to which last year’s Head Boy alludes (that is, teaching geared towards assessment performance, and teaching that inspires and equips students more broadly). At the same time, these writers show that their projects combine research with professional experience. Dickson’s research stresses the importance of knowledge retention for enabling students to ‘do’ History for A-level examinations. Yet her study of an intervention involving weekly knowledge quizzes also demonstrates her forging of intrinsic motivation, engagement, and independence in her Sixth Form students. Knowledge as the crucial foundation of learning is a similarly important thread according to Benson and Cooper, who share how an increased knowledge of language has transformed Early Years pupils’ progress in assessments and creative engagement with books. Along similar lines, Taylor outlines approaches to tackling longer philosophical texts in the A-level classroom to improve her students’ examination performance whilst forging intellectual curiosity and reading stamina.
Two articles where progressive approaches to education are valued at least as much as traditional ones, and with strong research bases governed by teacher experience, are Jon Cheetham’s and Elen Harris’s. Initially published in Sevenoaks School’s Innovate journal, their inclusion here stems from an embryonic research network developing between both schools, thanks to conversations with Mark Beverley (Director of Sevenoaks’ Institute of Teaching and Learning). Cheetham’s article suggests how reading poetry aloud to care home residents can be potentially fertile– but also problematic – ground for improving student wellbeing; Harris’s investigates whether certain dialogic approaches to feedback have ‘a quantifiable impact on student metacognition’. Community Service Coordinator, Kath Tomlin’s piece on ‘Feedback to Move Forward’ quite aptly follows these articles. It describes her continued successful employment of similar metacognitive approaches to feedback (discussed in issue 1), even though their effectiveness is ‘difficult to quantify’.
Librarian Gosia Pudelko-Kelly’s article functions as abridge in this issue between teaching-focused research, and both examples of student engagement with research and a series of academic book reviews. The Library plays a similarly important bridging role within the school’s research community. It connects teaching staff and students with academic research, which is evident in Pudelko-Kelly’s description of how our Library seeks to collaborate more with teaching staff ‘to improve pupils’ research and critical thinking skills’, and to help foster ‘lifelong learning’. These are evident first-hand in former student Fabien Bryans’ summary of his Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), which explains his search for functionality and cyber security in designing ‘a lightweight cryptosystem’ for pacemakers; and in Year 13 student, Nick Townsend’s book review, which is followed by two more reviews by Martin Walker and Estelle Couture respectively. They round off what I hope you will agree is an exciting second issue. It aims to catalyse ideas, challenge existing practice, and provoke further dialogue about the relationship between research and practice, and, perhaps, what constitutes ‘effectiveness’ in effective teaching. I thank Hannah Butland (Deputy Head of Teaching and Innovation) for her help in planning and assembling it.
Dr James Cutler (Editor), November 2020
Head of Research
Welcome to issue 3 of Research at Berkhamsted – Rebalancing
Welcome to issue 3 of Research at Berkhamsted, our annual showcasing of research undertaken by staff and students and celebration of continued engagement with other research active schools.
On returning to school in February after more online teaching and learning, the discourse at Berkhamsted was not about ‘catching up’ or ‘repairing’. Rather than unhelpfully assuming shortcomings or something broken and in need of repair among students and staff, we focused more pragmatically and positively on ‘rebalancing’. We aimed to rebalance digital habits, resilience, adaptability, teaching, and learning, drawing on that which we had learned from lockdown.
This rebalancing has continued in the first few weeks of Michaelmas term. And it also seems to me that there is a rebalancing taking place across certain facets of education: in the use of cognitive science (EEF, 2021; Perry, 2021; Civinini, 2021), in approaching race, gender, and sexuality (Roberts, 2019; 2021; Elliott, Nelson-Addy, Chantiluke, and Courtney, 2021), in public examinations (Hyman, 2020, McConville, 2020, Lucas 2020), in engaging with research (Sherrington, 2021), and even in the negotiation of the ‘Trad’ vs. ‘Progressive’ dichotomy (as the exchange between Barbara Bleiman, Martin Robinson, Andrew Atherton, and others on Twitter demonstrated at the end of May (2021).
Indeed, this theme of rebalancing emerges strongly among many, if not all, of the articles published here. The issue opens with Dr. Kathy Weston’s ‘Cultivating Pupil Resilience: Pathway Beyond a Pandemic’. Weston argues that schools should rebalance their approach to mental health in children following two years of COVID-19, lockdown, and school closures. Weston cautions against assuming that all children are suffering or that all children’s experience of the pandemic – and, indeed, of mental health – are the same. Along similar lines, Laura Knight’s ‘Digital Wellbeing at Berkhamsted School’ describes Berkhamsted’s recalibration of digital device usage to improve digital wellbeing among students. Knight shares how her approach sought to re-educate and establish clear boundaries about acceptable use so that technological innovation could be embraced rather than shunned. Wellbeing is also central to Stuart Simons’ project outlined in ‘Does having a therapy dog present in reading lessons have a beneficial effect on student engagement and development in reading?’. Disrupted by the school’s closures, Simons intends to rebalance his ongoing project following its initial iteration, which started to suggest the positive impact of wellbeing dogs in the English classroom.
Moving onto learning and teaching, James Green’s ‘(Re)finding the Main Verb: Ancient Languages and Educational Inequality’ calls for ancient languages to be placed at the heart of Classics teaching as an effective means of levelling the educational playing field through a fairer redistribution of cultural capital. Following this, Grant McWalter’s ‘Ability Grouping at Berkhamsted’ examines the impact of setting on pupil progress. He comes to advocate various tweaks to setting to accommodate certain problems of self-perception. English teacher and Head of Research at Downe House School, Dr. Andrew Atherton, continues the pedagogic thread in ‘Disciplinary Retrieval: A Case Study in English Literature’. This refreshing article, well-versed in cognitive science, evaluates the effectiveness of retrieval practice and suggests that perhaps the best form is discipline specific.
Four articles by Daisy Goldhagen, Micheila Brigginshaw, Katie Duce, and Will Findlay then concentrate on rebalancing specific approaches in their respective subjects. Goldhagen’s ‘Can ‘Mark Making’ art help weak spellers develop their handwriting?’ looks to bring ‘automaticity’ to the foreground of handwriting and spelling. Brigginshaw’s ‘Soundscapes of the self’, taken from a book chapter she has previously published, calls for the need to restore balance in our relationship with our environments by listening more carefully and not simply prioritising the visual. Duce’s piece describes her endeavours to introduce more metacognition and supercurricular knowledge and understanding in her teaching; Findlay’s looks at changes to the History curriculum in the context of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, suggesting that, in the cultural and social development of pupils, consideration of what you teach should not outweigh how you teach it.
This section on learning and teaching is followed by three essays by external writers. Cambridge PhD candidate Vaughan Connelly’s original and thought-provoking ‘When Less Can Be More’ puts forward a convincing case for reassessing the allocation of teaching time to teachers to allow them more time to do things that really make a difference. Dr. Paul Parham and Prof. Gloria Moss’s then supports tweaking teacher leadership style and inclusiveness for a positive impact on student performance; Dr. Ceri Sims and Paul Thompson’s explores the best way to help young people develop as leaders. The issue concludes with a selection of EPQ write-ups and academic book reviews. I do hope you enjoy reading all contributions as much as I enjoyed editing them.
As always, my sincere thanks extend to all writers for their willingness to publish, openness to feedback, and punctuality with deadlines; to Deputy Head of Teaching and Learning, Hannah Butland, whose suggestions and insights have been invaluable; and to Jen Hallesy for designing the issue.
Dr. James Cutler
(Head of Research and Teacher of English)
Welcome to issue 4 of Research at Berkhamsted – A Character Education
Berkhamsted aims to develop students who do more than simply pass public exams with exceptional results. The ideal Berkhamsted alumnus is better-rounded than that. They are someone who flourishes – in Higher Education, in employment, and in society more broadly (for more on student flourishing, see Kristjansson, 2019; Hampson et al., 2022; McConville et al., 2021; Swaner and Wolfe, 2021). They don’t simply ‘earn a living’ but ‘enjoy lives worth living’, because they forge happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, and a sense of meaning and purpose in life, character and virtue, and strong social relationships (which are the domains The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science uses to measure the extent of ‘human flourishing’).
A key part of the school’s nurturing process is the focus on the education of student character: at Berkhamsted, the development of character is as important as the content in lessons and extra-curricular activities. Such ‘Character Education’ is celebrated in this fourth issue of Research at Berkhamsted. It offers insight into some of the evidence, research, and thinking underpinning our emphasis on this key facet of education in 2022, and helps explain why it is so important in developing flourishing, remarkable people.
We open with Edward Cain’s detailed and lively literature review, ‘What can your subject contribute?’, which helpfully – and thoroughly – serves to contextualise the character-focused pieces that follow. The first of these is Richard Backhouse’s ‘Character – Universal or Just Vital’, with contributions from Mark Turner and John Browne, whose Janus-faced approach outlines the tradition and modernity of character education, as well as, ultimately, its value in three very different contexts. Ben Kerr-Shaw’s ‘What makes a “remarkable” person?’ builds on Backhouse’s, succeeding in crystalizing the potentially nebulous idea of an individual being ‘remarkable’, with an investigation into the character traits that parents, pupils, and colleagues look for in a ‘remarkable person’. Next, Aidan Thompson, PhD student and Director of Strategy and Integration at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtue at the University of Birmingham, argues in ‘Educating character through song lyrics’, that popular song lyrics are as morally useful for the ‘betterment’ of the individual as some of the greatest works of Literature. Former Head Girl, Daisy Holbrook, then reflects on how her character was developed throughout 15 years as a student at Berkhamsted in ‘Character Education at Berkhamsted’. Duncan Hardy’s contribution is also Berkhamsted-focused: in ‘Leadership at Berkhamsted and “the advantage it offers”’, he outlines his initiative of embedding a culture of leadership throughout the school, which has been crucial in the formation of students’ character. An alternative view is provided by Dr. Lee Jerome, whose article, ‘Problems with Character Education’, finishes this section of the issue, critiquing theefficacy of certain actualisations of character education, providing food for thought about how best to deliver it.
The issue then broadens out with Alastair Harrison’s, ‘What is the purpose of the Key Stage 3 curriculum?’, which interrogates whether KS3 in English should be GCSE preparation or subject enrichment. Following this, Hannah Galbraith’s ‘Pen-on-paper versus stylus-on-tablet’ investigates whether some of the cutting-edge technology used for learning and teaching during lockdown still has a place in the Mandarin classroom. Similarly, Anna Dickson’s article asks how ‘digital technology [can] be used to support effective assessment and feedback without increasing teacher workload’? The post-pandemic classroom is also central to Sophie Brand’s work in ‘Reflections from a Covid Classroom’. It draws on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to explore a ‘teaching without organs’ approach. In ‘Improving children’s vocabulary: does it progress their writing?’, Emily Bowers then explores her efforts to improve Year 2 pupils’ writing by exposing them to more contextual vocabulary, which could have been seen as lacking during lockdowns throughout the pandemic. George Picker from Downe House School follows this in ‘Assessment: a meaningful process?’, calling for ways to make assessment more meaningful in Music and Isla Phillips from Sevenoaks School examines how the ‘Harkness’ discussion method can enhance the teaching of Critical Thinking. The issue is brought to a close with a precis of Adeeb Ali’s A* ‘Extended Project Qualification’ essay which evaluates antitrust law in the regulation of ‘Big Tech’ in the USA before book reviews by Nick Cale and Lucie Michell. Depending on why you are reading, I hope the inspiring work on display motivates you to tweak your practice or pursue a line of research; or demonstrates a small sample of some of the research-informed thinking that contributes to the development of ‘remarkable’ people at Berkhamsted.
Once again, thank you wholeheartedly to all contributors, to Hannah Butland, Deputy Head: Teaching, Learning, and Innovation, for guidance and proof reading, and to the exceptionally creative Jen Hallesy for the graphic design.
Dr. James Cutler
(Head of Research and Teacher of English)
Welcome to issue 5 of Research at Berkhamsted – a ‘Learning and the Brain’ special.
We are very excited to feature contributions from world-renowned neuroscientist, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (from the University of Cambridge) and leading expert on the psychology of learning and thinking, Bradley Busch. Alongside them, we are proud, once again, to showcase some of the outstanding research that the staff at Berkhamsted are undertaking.
Currently, we are amidst an exciting proliferation of research relating to cognitive psychology (and, increasingly, neuroscience) and learning which has transformed the educational landscape. The Education Endowment Foundation’s recent evidence review relating to ‘Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom’ concluded that ‘Cognitive science principles of learning can have a significant impact on rates of learning in the classroom’ and that ‘[t]here is value in teachers having working knowledge of cognitive science principles’ (2021, 7). Considering the impact of this science of learning – or ‘cognitive turn’ as it has been deemed –, it is hard to believe that the phenomenon is only a relatively recent one. Although J. Sweller’s seminal paper on cognitive load theory (‘Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design’) was published in 1994 and a few early works emerged in the ‘noughties’, the majority of works cited in the EEF’s mammoth 372-page meta-study followed Barak Rosenshine’s oft-cited ‘Principles of Instruction’, which importantly opened the cognitive science floodgates in 2010. Because, understandably, new research takes some time to trickle down to CPD courses, INSET sessions, and, ultimately, classrooms, we have only really started to enjoy the fruits in recent years.
Learning and Teaching at Berkhamsted have come to embrace many of these ideas (though with an appropriate level of criticality to ensure that we adopt what is right for our specific context): this special issue is testament to, and one manifestation of, our hard work to apply certain theories of the brain to practical classroom instruction. It opens with a transcript of Prof. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s conversation with some of our A-level Psychology students about the teenage brain and Brad Busch’s helpful insight into cognitive load theory. Laura Knight and former Head Boy, Orlando Alexander, then consider the ‘connections and conflicts’ between human learning and artificial intelligence. This technological thread is picked up by Kate Craigen in her research on the impact of laptop use on learning and outcomes and Chris Botschin who explores how technology has affected creativity in Design and Technology. Courtney Hooton, PhD student in the fi eld of Psycholinguistics, then discusses language learning and orthography, Dr. Paul Hundal thinks about retrieval practice through quizzing, and Anna Dickson explains the evolution of our exciting new ‘Learning Pathways’ programme in years 10 and 11 and its close links to current research on cognitive science and metacognition. Moving to a pastoral context, Dr. Emily Kenefick, our school psychologist, connects the brain with the heart in her contribution on anxiety and Becky Baker describes her explicit teaching of metacognitive skills to her tutor group. The issue moves away from the theme to feature research by Natalie Revell on attainment in GCSE Food and Nutrition and Zoe Sayliss on how sport contributes to a child’s sense of place. The issue concludes with current Year 13 student Hannah Fairburn’s prizewinning essay on Aristotelian concepts of learning and a review of The Incredible Teenage Brain by Alison Murray.
As always, my whole-hearted thanks extend to all writers for such lively, interesting, and valuable contributions, as well as to Hannah Butland for helping to plan and proofread this issue and Jennifer Hallesy for her creativity in designing such an impressive looking publication.
Dr. James Cutler
(Director of Teacher Development and
Research, and Teacher of English)
Research at Berkhamsted
Find out more about Research at Berkhamsted from our Deputy Head of Innovation and Teaching and Editor of our annual Research magazine
