SiE what's happening - March 2015
SiE what's happening - March 2015
Sport in Education is an approach which uses sport as a context for learning in secondary schools to help students to improve their academic results by putting learning into a context that has meaning for them. In addition to achieving academic outcomes, the approach also improves student engagement, social outcomes and raises the activity levels of students. Find out more about the Sport in Education project here.
This edition
- SiE going from strength to strength
- SiE helps develop leaders at Te Kuiti High
- Priority learners at Tauranga Boys go free range with SiE
- Students excelling through Papakura High's Health and Sport Science Academy
SiE going from strength to strength
Last year, the eight pilot schools involved in the Sport in Education (SiE) project were asked to provide some of the "top-line" changes happening as a consequence of the Sport in Education (SiE) project in a bid to capture some of the key areas of success within the programme. In particular, Sport NZ were keen to understand the overall impact the project has had on academic achievement and student engagement, sports participation, the relative academic performance of the SiE classes compared to non-SiE classes, as well as project expansion and development since the programme's introduction in 2013.
In addition to the key findings from the independent evaluation undertaken by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER), Manager of the SiE project at Sport NZ Roger Wood says the results gathered from the schools indicate that the programme is having a very positive effect on the students involved and delivering on its key outcomes.
After the first year of SiE's implementation, NZCER's evaluation found that the values and characteristics of sport such as teamwork, competition and effort (critical components of SiE) were evident within the classroom setting of the schools involved.
It also found that the participating schools are increasingly interweaving four of the project's five workstreams (curriculum development, student leadership, primary school connections and culture/values), and are connecting well to other school initiatives like Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L).
In addition, schools were extending the SiE approach into more senior levels, after initially focusing on Year 9 and 10 students.Metrics provided by the schools show that as they enter their third year, the SiE project has expanded significantly. Students engaged in the SiE approach have increased from 681 in 2013 to 1,955, the number of teachers involved has grown from 64 to 168 and the curriculum areas have expanded from the initial Maths, English and PE to now encompass Science, Social Studies, Digital Technology and up to nine other subject areas.
Additionally, a NZ Secondary Schools Sport Council (NZSSSC) census has shown that student representation in school sport for SiE schools is around nine percent higher than it has previously been at those schools, and eight percent higher than the one percent national change average for schools between 2012 and 2014.Teachers coaching in the SiE pilot schools had also increased by three percent, while nationally it had not increased at all over the same period of time. Teacher involvement also increased by four percent, in comparison to the national average of one percent.
All SiE schools had seen improvements in attendance, engagement levels and academic achievement for the students in SiE classes."Following on from the initial results from NZCER's evaluation, and two years into the project, we wanted to get a clearer idea of the effect SiE was having on the key project outcomes. Over the last year, more than 20 new schools have come on board, adopting some or all components of the programme's approach.""SiE is going from strength to strength, and we are now in a good position to expand the programme even further and to extend the positive impact to students, the schools they attend, and the communities they're part of. These results really help emphasise that," Roger says.
SiE helps develop leaders at Te Kuiti High
Te Kuiti High School is using sports leadership classes and leadership units within their senior classes to develop leadership skills and connections with feeder primary schools in the region to build student engagement and self-esteem."The sports leadership class is now into its third year and we are seeing some real benefits from this in terms of student achievement, confidence and engagement. We are also seeing wider benefits with the primary schools, too, with those finding the transition from primary school to secondary school much easier," says Te Kuiti High School's SiE Project Leader, Gareth Williams."Feedback from primary teachers at the feeder schools has been really positive - they're impressed with the students' maturity, skills and positivity when delivering the programme."Most recently, the senior classes delivered ten sessions of sports activities to three feeder primary schools using Teaching Games for Understanding (TGFU) as an overriding theme, which then culminated in Te Kuiti High School hosting a one-day tournament that the students organised and officiated."It was a really positive way to finish the year for those students, with 80 percent of the students surveyed saying that doing the leadership course had given them increased confidence and that this had transferred to other areas of school life."Gareth says that in addition to increased confidence that they could achieve NCEA, students described how they had transferred some of the confidence or capabilities they gained from sports leadership experiences to other school experiences, like public speaking. Others found they had the confidence to take on other leadership roles at school such as house captains or leading at school sports."It shows us just how these sorts of skills and confidence are transferrable from the sports field, to class, and to life," Gareth says.
Priority learners at Tauranga Boys go free range with SiE
Integrated units of work with a sporting context are having a positive impact on the engagement and academic performance of secondary students at Tauranga Boys. In fact, lower level learning students engaged in the SiE project are achieving higher academic achievement in classes like Math and English than those students who are not in priority learner classes. And attendance rates have also increased from 81 percent to 90 percent.
Tauranga Boys College SiE Project Leader, Gareth Hyett, says the key to the success of the integrated units of work is the free range approach teachers are taking to delivering the curriculum, with the boys being encouraged to use their own interests and apply it to their work, as well as establishing their own goals and developing their own organisational skills.
He says the school and the students involved have been happily surprised by the improvements in their learning. "The average for a term 3 math test last year for that class was 41 percent - a 19 percent increase in results for the equivalent class in 2012. It was also 6 percent higher than the average for the class two streams above. Additionally, the SiE class outperformed the class two streams above for a reading comprehension PAT score, with an average of 4.0, in comparison to the 3.15 average for the class above."
Three integrated units of work are run for Year 9 students every year over the course of four to five weeks. The students are asked to provide a list of sports topics that they're interested in and the curriculum is altered to incorporate these themes into the classes. Gareth says the biggest challenge for priority learners is keeping them engaged in the classroom, so providing them with learning contexts that are meaningful and interesting to them is hugely beneficial.
Last year, NFL basketball proved to be a hit with the students who underwent a recreated NFL fitness test and then applied their results from the test to their Math and Science classes.
"Being able to apply their fitness test results to the work they were doing really helped engage these guys because they were applying it to their own experiences and learnings," Gareth says.
Students excelling through Papakura High's Health and Sport Science Academy
Sport in Education at Papakura High School has been integrated with its Health and Sport Science Academy (HASSA), and there have been some great results for students involved. HASSA, which is about finding real life relevant contexts to increase students' engagement, has been in operation at Papakura High since 2012 and complemented the principles of the SiE project perfectly when it was introduced to the school in the same year."The programme has really engaged a lot of students and allowed them a greater chance to achieve in NCEA," says Papakura High School SiE Project Leader Jayne Dunbar. She says with many students not achieving well at NCEA, there was a need for change and credits the flexible, problem-solving thematic approach to creating a deeper understanding of content by making it more relevant for the students.
The engagement and retention levels for the HASSA/SiE classes at Papakura High over the last two years serve to emphasise this, with an 89 percent average attendance rate, compared to 78 percent for the equivalent cohort at the school. Average retention rates for the HASSA/SiE classes were also higher than those from other schools not involved in SiE - 90 percent compared to an equivalent school average of 60 percent.
Those engaged in HASSA/SiE in 2013 and 2014 also achieved a higher average for NCEA results in comparison to their equivalent class cohorts which weren't part of the programme. In 2013, the average result for NCEA Level 1 students engaged in the programme was 47 percent in comparison to the 33 percent average of their Level 1 equivalent at the school. In 2014, there was a marked difference in the average for NCEA Level 2 classes - with the HASSA/SiE class average sitting at 75 percent and the other Level 2 class equivalent at 60 percent. NCEA Level 3 classes were 63 percent and 44.1 percent respectively.
The HASSA classes were initially set up for students interested in a career within the Health or Sport Science industries, and with some advice from Auckland University about the entrance requirements for probable pathways for HASSA students the focus has been placed on Science, Health and PE, Maths and English. Jayne says the idea of this was to help support the students' transition from secondary school to tertiary education. Since it was first established, the curriculum areas for HASSA/SiE at Papakura High have expanded from four to 15.
The programme has also seen a promising increase in the levels of teacher and student involvement, which has led to a growth in coaches and greater involvement with community clubs. Since 2013, HASSA has grown from 145 students to 500 students, with the number of teachers involved growing from 17 in 2013 to 40 this year. "We've seen some fantastic results with HASSA and Sport in Education. The students have really bought into the programme and performed beyond their expectations, which is fantastic to see," Jayne says.
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