Invest in teachers to raise achievement
02 April 2009
Children in classes taught by the best teachers learn four times faster than those in classes taught by the poorest ones, according to a leading educationalist.
It therefore matters much less which school a child attends than which classroom they are placed in, Professor Dylan Wiliam of the Institute of Education, London will tell a conference in Cambridge today (Thursday 2 April). "Children in the most effective classrooms will learn in six months what students in an average classroom learn in a year," he will say. "And students in the least effective classrooms will take two years to learn it."
Professor Wiliam will also tell the Institute of Fiscal Studies conference that many of the strategies that are used to improve pupil achievement, such as reducing class sizes and investing in computers and interactive whiteboards, are not cost-effective.
Cutting the number of children in a class by 30 per cent (dividing 60 children into three classes rather than two, for example) could enable them to make 16 months' progress in a year. However, it would cost about £20,000 per classroom and would require another 150,000 classrooms to be built in England. It would mean that another 150,000 teachers would have to be hired, and there would be no guarantee that they would be as good as the staff already in post.
Investing in new technology is even less cost-effective, he believes. "It is said that the history of computers in education is one of their being 'oversold and underused'," he will say. "That has been my experience." Institute of Education researchers have found that interactive whiteboards, for example, which are now used in many classrooms, have had no effect on pupil performance in London schools.
Education reorganisations, such as the introduction of "all-through" schools for students aged 3 to 19, and the creation of federations of secondary schools led by executive headteachers, are unlikely to make any real difference either, he predicts. Instead, Professor Wiliam argues that the best way to raise achievement is to improve how teachers teach. "What really matters is the quality of the teacher," he will say. "Investing in teacher development is far more cost-effective than other strategies."
However, he does not believe in simply improving teachers' subject knowledge or helping them to understand students' "learning style". There is little evidence that the latter has any impact on student achievement either, he says.
Having studied teacher effectiveness for 20 years he is convinced that an approach known as "formative assessment" – using constant teacher feedback on pupils' performance to help them learn rather than judge them – brings the greatest benefits at the lowest cost. "A focus on formative assessment can generate as much as eight extra months of learning per year at a cost of only £2,000 per classroom," he will say. "This is around 20 times as cost-effective as class-size reduction."
Formative assessment, which is often referred to as Assessment for Learning (AfL), is now firmly established as part of the government's National Strategy for education. The Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish education departments have also provided varying degrees of backing for AfL. But Professor Wiliam has concluded that the approach will only take off properly if teachers in every school are encouraged to work together in groups to refine their approach to formative assessment and adapt it to suit their own classrooms. "Simply telling teachers what to do doesn't work," he will say. "It is impossible to prepare teachers for every situation they will face in the classroom."
Professor Wiliam acknowledges that a staff development exercise on this scale will not be easy to organise but is confident it can be done. "The effort involved will certainly be justified because raising achievement really matters, both for individuals and for society," he will add. "For the individual, higher achievement means an increased life-time salary, improved health and longer life. For society it results in increased taxes, lower healthcare costs and reduced criminal justice costs. The consequences are immense."
ends
For further information or to arrange an interview with Professor Wiliam, please contact Helen Green, +44 (0)20 7612 6459, +44 (0)7734 540 870, h.green@ioe.ac.uk
Notes for editors
Formative assessment, or assessment for learning, is a tried-and-tested system through which teachers give continuous, immediate feedback to pupils so that they can use this to benefit their learning. Some teachers use a "traffic lights" system and ask pupils to hold up different coloured cards to show whether they have understood what they have been told. Red means "no", amber means "partly", and green "yes". Teachers may then ask pupils who have held up green cards to explain it to the others. Pupils are also encouraged to evaluate their own work and advise their classmates on how they can improve.
Dylan Wiliam is professor of educational assessment and deputy director of the Institute of Education, London. A well-known expert on assessment for learning, he is the author or co-author of numerous journal articles, books and chapters in books on the subject.
The Institute of Education is a college of the University of London, specialising in teaching, research and consultancy in education and related areas of social science and professional practice.