Posted on by Dr James Shea

The big idea that’s affected how nearly all schools in England are led and run

In 1996, Roger Shouse sat down to pen an article for the journal, The Social Psychology of Education. He wanted to examine tensions between two visions of schooling. One stresses social cohesion (i.e., common beliefs, shared activities, and caring relations between members). The other emphasised strong academic mission (i.e., values and practices that reinforce high standards for student performance). His findings set alight a touch paper that has burned so brightly, they have become seared into American educational literature. They have also influenced a generation of school leaders, authors and teachers. When the Gibb and Gove revolution came along post-2010, they and those they followed, looked to America and its Charter Schools, looked to Deans for Impact, Doug Lemov and all the literature emerging from this decade of hothousing, and implemented the ideas lock stock and barrel. Today, many MATs and schools across the country are run on the ideas Roger Shouse was examining. So, what was it he found that was so influential?

Shouse found:

“(1) Significant links between academic press and student achievement

(2) that academic press has its greatest achievement effect among low-SES schools;

(3) that strong sense of community may have a negative impact on achievement in low-SES schools with weak academic press; and

(4) that for low- and middle-SES schools, the greatest achievement effects follow from strong combinations of communality and academic press.”

And the big idea? Academic press. A literal metaphor in which every moment is valuable for academic study – over other variables which do not count towards the academic outcome. But is the school alone responsible for the academic press? Who else can and should be pressing students to make every moment count towards their academic studies? Kensler, Mitchell and Tschannen-Moran speculated in the Journal of School Leadership that parents and students could also contribute as well as leaders focused on instructional leadership, but wondered which made the biggest contribution to the overall academic press? They found that the school academic press made the greatest difference to variance in student achievement – beyond even that of socioeconomic circumstances. A heady claim and one that promised to deliver schools from the never-ending issue of the achievement gap.

Dial this up into school leadership and systems and you come to Leithwood and Sun’s work which looks at combining the academic press with disciplinary climate (DC), and teachers’ use of instructional time. Could we conceptualise an ‘academic culture’ as a key mediator of school leaders’ influence on student learning? Their answer was that academic culture, controlling for student social economic status, was a significant mediator of senior school leaders’ influence on student outcomes.

So, what’s the problem? Full steam ahead, right? Zero tolerance, every second counts, every hand up, narrow the curriculum from one that is diverse to one that is focused on that which contributes to academic work. Ditch the PE, drama and extra-curricular fun for a smaller suite of academic subjects with extra-curricular boosters aimed at pressing students to chase every last mark available.

Ah, now, it turns out that there other approaches and ones that are proven to be more successful. Ones that are founded on student teacher relationships and the relationships between teachers and school leaders. At the centre of it all is trust and high-quality relationships. Lee’s work showed that there was only partial support for the advantage of authoritative schools with high levels of both demandingness (academic press) and responsiveness (the teacher–student relationship). She found that supportive teacher–student relationships and academic press were significantly related to behavioural and emotional student engagement whereas only the teacher–student relationship was a significant predictor of reading performance. The effects of the teacher–student relationship on student outcomes were not contingent on academic press of the school.

Sun, Zhang, Murphy and Zhang looked hard at these relationships in their meta-analysis of 30 years’ worth of research into academic press. What they found was a sequential relationship style rather than evidence for a top-down instructional leader style delivery of the academic press. What they found was this.

Teacher trust had a moderate effect on student learning

School leadership had a large effect on teacher trust

Teacher trust in students and parents contributed to student learning more than the other dimensions of trust

Supportive, collegial types of school leadership had the largest effect on the teachers’ trust

Their conclusions were clear: to improve student learning, school leaders need to enlist all effective practices in order to build trust in schools and pay equal attention to improving teachers’ trust as they do other efforts to improve instructional programs and teaching practices. More efforts are needed from school leaders to help build teachers’ trust in parents and students.

And so finally we return to schools in England. Leaders in education in England, including those in the DfE, have consumed and dined heavily on texts from America which are predicated on selling the answer to low academic achievement from those low SES backgrounds. Some of these leaders have fostered high levels of trust across their organisations. They seek to build relationships, serve communities and yet also have a firm academic press of the sort that is inclusive and which everyone buys into on a basis of trust. Some leaders have not yet moved from the authoritative ‘demandingness’ version of the academic press where trust is not present between teachers, parents, leaders and ultimately students. As always, the right answer is not in tribalism, in all of one idea and none of another, but a sophisticated blend of both worlds. We should seek to build social cohesion (i.e., common beliefs, shared activities, and caring relations between members), but we should also ensure students, from all SES backgrounds, are fully supported to achieve the best outcomes they can, whatever those outcomes look like.

Dr James Shea is a Principal Lecturer in Teacher Education at The University of Bedfordshire. James posts on X at Englishspecial and recently featured in The Observer calling out GCSE Tiktok Tipsters

Posted on by Dr James Shea

Revolutionise Learning with National Education Service AI Technologies

Imagine glancing into the near future of education. In Sweden, Lexplore uses AI-powered eye-tracking not just to assess reading, but to actively screen children for potential difficulties like dyslexia, identifying needs often before they become entrenched problems. What’s striking isn’t just the technology; it’s the philosophy. This feels less like conventional testing or inspection, and more akin to a proactive health service identifying risks and enabling early support. Could this preventative, diagnostic approach be a model for England’s Department for Education?

The UK’s National Health Service operates on a foundational principle: catch health issues early through reliable and inexpensive screening. Interventions triggered by timely screening are invariably more personalised, cheaper, more successful, and less intrusive. Think about developmental checks for babies or targeted screening programmes for adults based on age and risk factors – it’s not a one-size-fits-all annual exam for everyone simultaneously. What if we applied this proven, preventative philosophy to education, but converged with the power of AI?

We stand at the cusp of an explosion in convergence between artificial intelligence and educational technology. AI is rapidly moving beyond simple automation; it can increasingly ‘observe’ and analyse the process of learning. Imagine systems that don’t just mark a final answer, but watch how a pupil reads – tracking eye movements for fluency and comprehension indicators. Picture AI analysing handwriting formation for potential motor control issues or even just letter formation; identifying patterns in mathematical problem-solving that might suggest dyscalculia or misconceptions; observing collaborative interactions in virtual environments; or even assessing biomechanical efficiency in PE. While acknowledging the critical ethical considerations around data privacy and algorithmic bias that must be addressed, the potential for deep, nuanced understanding of individual learning is immense. And it will arrive. Don’t think the tidal wave of AI is going to miss education. It’s going to cover every single bit of it.

This capability of AI allows us to envision a shift away from assessing children primarily to measure school performance, towards screening individuals to understand their specific needs. Contrast this with our current reliance on blunt, mass-approach strategies. Pupil Premium funding, while well-intentioned, often lacks the granular data to target underlying needs effectively. Large-scale EEF randomised controlled trials dictate averaged-out ‘best practices’ that may not suit every child or context. Rigid, centrally mandated phonics schemes meet pupils at varying developmental stages.

Consider the annual phonics screening check – the infamous graph plotting average scores by birth month, a near-perfect downward slope from September to August-born children, is a stark illustration. It highlights the absurdity of assessing every child at the same chronological point, ignoring months of developmental difference. The check itself may have value, but the one-size-fits-all process is flawed. It’s a system designed for cohort-level data collection, not individual diagnosis. Similarly, high-stakes standardised tests often narrow the curriculum, induce stress, and provide only a snapshot in time, failing to capture progress, promote creativity, or cultivate critical thinking.

Imagine, instead, dynamic, AI-powered screening. Phonics checks could be triggered by birth month, not school year cohort. Algorithms could identify children needing earlier or more frequent screening based on a growing profile of risk factors – perhaps language delay, family history, or early indicators from those AI observations of reading or writing. A five-year-old wearing an eye patch for 18 months wouldn’t just potentially ‘fail’ a single test; their progress could be sensitively tracked via regular screening against national benchmarks for learners with similar challenges.

The data generated wouldn’t primarily serve to rank schools, a practice often misleading given the vast differences in intake, funding, and context. Instead, it would empower precise, personalised interventions. AI analysis identifying specific phoneme difficulties could trigger targeted support from a school’s in-house reading specialist. Real-time assessment of maths understanding could dynamically adjust adaptive learning software. Observed motor control difficulties could lead to specific occupational therapy recommendations. This approach allows resources – human expertise, tailored software, specific aids – to be channelled effectively, supporting a child directly.

Scaling this vision creates a powerful national dataset focused on children’s learning needs and progression trajectories, not crude school comparisons. This brings us back to the idea of a “National Education Service.” While the term was politically championed by Labour in recent years with a focus on universal access and lifelong learning, this technologically-enabled vision offers a different emphasis: a service philosophy built on proactive, individualised screening and support. It uses AI not for judgment, but for deep understanding, enabling interventions that are early, cost-effective, successful, and minimally intrusive where possible.

Isn’t it time the DfE seriously considered shifting its focus from ranking schools through mass assessment to truly nurturing every child’s potential through intelligent, personalised screening? Perhaps a reimagined NES, powered by ethical AI, is the future. It’s already happening at an elite sport level, so why not be bold and have a plan to use it for every child in the country.

Dr James Shea @englishspecial

Image of elite sport using AI to ‘watch’ a player’s perfomance

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Why teachers can play classical music in lessons without creating the split attention effect

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Music has long been recognized for its potential to enhance learning environments and cognitive processes. Teachers often incorporate music into their lessons to create a conducive atmosphere for students to focus, engage, and retain information. Classical music, in particular, is a popular choice among teachers due to its calming and stimulating effects on the brain. However, when it comes to playing music with singing during lessons, the dynamics change. An up to the minute study by Sankaran et al. (2024) sheds light on the neural processing of music and speech in the human auditory cortex, providing insights into why teachers may prefer classical music over vocal music in schools for extended writing.

The research conducted by Sankaran et al. delves into how the brain encodes different aspects of melody, such as pitch, pitch-change, and expectation, while listening to Western musical phrases. The study involved recording neurophysiological activity directly from the human auditory cortex using high-density arrays placed over the lateral surface of the cortex. The findings revealed that music-responsive cortical sites, primarily in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG), showed significant responses to music compared to a silent baseline period. This suggests that the brain processes music in a specialised manner, with distinct neural populations encoding various melodic features thus removing the split attention effect.

One key aspect highlighted in the study is the difference in neural responses to music and speech stimuli. While certain regions in the STG selectively respond to music over other sounds like speech, the encoding of higher-order sequence structures in music plays a crucial role in this selectivity. The brain’s sensitivity to the unique acoustic structure of music, particularly in terms of spectral and temporal modulation patterns, influences how music is processed and perceived. This distinction in neural processing between music and speech raises important considerations for teachers when choosing the type of music to play during lessons if they wish to reduce the chance of creating a split attention effect during their lesson.

Classical music, known for its instrumental compositions and lack of vocal lyrics (operatic music aside), offers a rich auditory experience that can positively impact cognitive functions such as focus, memory, and mood. The absence of lyrics in classical music eliminates potential distractions leading to split attention that may arise from processing verbal information while trying to concentrate on academic tasks. Additionally, the complex and structured nature of classical music can enhance cognitive processing and creative thinking, making it an ideal background accompaniment for extended writing (or artwork) during lessons.

On the other hand, music with singing introduces an additional layer of complexity to the auditory experience. The presence of lyrics in vocal music requires the brain to simultaneously process verbal content and musical elements, which can divide attention and potentially interfere with cognitive tasks. The study by Sankaran et al. suggests that the neural processing of speech and music with lyrics may engage overlapping neural circuits, leading to a different cognitive response compared to instrumental music.

In conclusion, the research on the neural encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex provides valuable insights into why teachers may choose classical music over vocal music during lessons. By understanding how the brain processes different types of music, teachers can make informed decisions about the auditory environment in lessons to optimise student learning and engagement. Classical music, with its instrumental compositions and cognitive benefits, remains a preferred choice for creating a conducive learning atmosphere, while music containing singing may introduce additional cognitive demands that could potentially deliver a split attention effect.

This is a blog of the paper Narayan Sankaran et al. (2024), Encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex. Sci. Adv. 10, pp. 1-16. 10.1126/sciadv.adk0010