Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold, but Just Right
The ‘Matthew Effect’ in education suggests that students who start with certain advantages, such as access to resources or quality instruction, tend to accumulate more knowledge and skills, while those who start with disadvantages may fall even further behind. The gap widens.
Nationwide NAPLAN results highlight that boys are twice as likely to be at or below national minimum standard in Writing than girls by age 15, with the proportions struggling to achieve that benchmark growing from an average of 3.9% of boys in Year 3 to 20.6% of boys in Year 9. With Writing being so closely connected to Reading and Spelling, and being required for success in many other key learning areas, this is concerning.
It is incredibly hard to catch up on literacy and numeracy gaps if they are not addressed in Primary School. Students become disillusioned, confidence wanes, and teachers start to compensate for students’ deficits (in order to get through increased content) in Secondary School. They have less time to teach foundational skills.
The harsh reality is that if students finish their primary schooling without adequate literacy and numeracy skills, it’s very hard for any secondary school to make up the difference.
Primary Schooling is a critical period of brain development and early intervention lays the foundation for a child’s cognitive development. Good Pre-school and Primary schooling has more impact on children's academic progress than their gender or family background.
The ‘Goldilocks Effect’ in education refers to the idea that optimal learning occurs when the level of difficulty or challenge is ‘just right’ for the learner. Learners thrive when they are presented with tasks or materials that are neither too easy nor too difficult, but appropriately aspirational.
When learning tasks are too easy, learners may become bored or disengaged, as they are not being challenged enough to fully develop their skills. On the other hand, when tasks are too difficult, learners may become frustrated or overwhelmed, hindering their ability to grasp and retain new information.
Finding the ‘just right’ level of challenge is crucial in education to promote optimal learning and growth. Educators strive to provide instructional materials and activities that match the abilities and needs of their students, allowing them to make progress and build upon their existing knowledge and skills. By striking this balance, the ‘Goldilocks Effect’ can enhance motivation, engagement, and overall learning outcomes.
This is crucial at a time when Australian research identifies that boys are three times more likely than girls to be quietly disengaged in their learning.
At Mosman Prep we:
- Ensure that purposeful and intentional assessment data is collected to establish an evidence base to inform foundational literacy and numeracy skills.
- Use this data to strategically target the individual needs of each boy.
- Determine individualised student goals based on a student’s point of need, and create targeted teaching groups.
- Proactively differentiate to support and extend student learning and provide authentic points for feedback and formative assessment.
- Clearly communicate learning intentions and success criteria with students.
- Provide an exceptional student:staff ratio to support these groupings (with teaching assistants in every Junior Primary Class supporting the class teacher, three additional Literacy and Numeracy Specialists in our Senior Primary classes, Learning Support Teachers, Gifted and Talented Teachers, and Speech Therapists and Occupational Therapists onsite).
- Ensure uninterrupted, in-class learning each morning where our staffing resources are allocated to support students at their point of need in Literacy and Numeracy.
- Utilise research-based programs such as the Macquarie University MultiLit suite.
Peter Grimes | Headmaster
