British researchers say there is no “average achievement”
There is ample evidence that children with so-called “average attainment” are often out of the sight of teachers, as educators focus their attention on the weakest students.
Experts say that children of “middle- whose potential can be revealed later, as a rule, deprived of the attention of teachers, as they do not belong to the number of laggards or excellent.
They found that most students either have promising hopes or are in the bottom half of the average ability of one of the subjects and classifying them as “average” carries the risk of not noticing the possibility of later disclosure potential in a particular area.
Research by GL Assessment found that “weak verbal, quantitative and spatial skills often hide a student’s potential.”
Shane Ray, Study Leader: “Our study shows that in a group classified as “average,” six out of ten students clearly exhibit a propensity for verbal, mathematical or spatial thinking.
If teachers identify these abilities, they can take an appropriate individual approach to the child.
Becky Howes, head of the Rushall’s Inclusion Advisory Service, which advises schools to help with children with special educational needs, added: “The “average level” can introduce confusion, because it prevents the identifying of pupils who are invisible to the teacher who are beginning to experience learning difficulties. When they are just no longer able to handle the program, it is very important to identify the students who need support at the moment.”
Poppy Ionides, a psychologist in the field of pedagogy, contributed, adding: “The body of evidence shows that if children believe in the possibility of developing their abilities and strong qualities, then in the future it will certainly benefit from the result learning.”
This provides the ground for diligence and resilience; failure is seen more as an opportunity to move forward, only with renewed energy, to develop its best qualities.
The “middle level” is not a verdict of incorrigible incompetence – those who start from the “middle level” have the opportunity to achieve much more if the school can influence the worldview of children and stimulate their development.
The research is provided by GL Assessment and is based on data from 24,500 students while testing their “thought abilities.” Work was carried out with children aged 11-12, and comparisons were with their GCSE results (the exam, which was conducted 4-5 years later).
According to the results of the test, about 50% of young people (which is in the region of 13,400 people who participated in the experiment) initially fell into the category of children of “medium abilities”.
Among these students, the odds of getting a high score of no lower than “B” in the GCSE English exam ranged from ten to seventy per cent, depending on how strong their verbal abilities were. That documents the findings of British researchers.