Research School Network: The Focus Five – how we are addressing disadvantage Phil Stock on Greenshaw’s approach to disadvantage where attention is paid to the needs of particular pupils to focus efforts.

At Greenshaw High School we have developed a culture of seeing things through the lens of disadvantage – of thinking very carefully about the impact of our actions in the classroom and around the school on our most vulnerable pupil groups.

This approach has started to ensure that our limited resources of time, energy and expertise are geared towards where they are most needed and where they can make the biggest difference.

We know that, for instance, high quality teaching is important for all pupils but absolutely crucial for the most disadvantaged.

The Focus Five

This past year we have made our disadvantage lens metaphor more concrete through an approach we call The Focus Five.

Each teacher uses a combination of the class information held by the school alongside their own knowledge of the individuals to identify up to five pupils whose needs they will pay particular attention to when planning and teaching their lessons.

The advantage of this strategy is that it uses data as a starting but not a finishing point:

• It recognises that details of PP pupils along with the SEN register can help identify those pupils who might need more attention and thought, but also ensures that teachers can add to this incomplete picture with their own valuable expertise.
• It’s not about sitting all the Focus Five pupils in the front row or marking their books first. It’s more nuanced than that, and involves the teacher determining for themselves the most appropriate strategies they will use to support the most vulnerable pupils in their care.

So, if a teacher does decide to sit a particular pupil near the front, it’s not because they have the pupil premium label, but because it makes it easier for them to better meet their needs during the lesson, such as providing them with scaffolds for more independent work.

Our model of Great Teaching provides a useful framework that supports teachers in their work. For instance, rather than looking at what can sometimes appear an overwhelming set of SEND strategies for each individual child, it identifies high leverage approaches that are effective for all, but particularly effective for the most vulnerable.

What Focus Five looks like in practice

Focus Five begins with the teacher thinking critically about how this or that part of their lesson will be experienced by the pupils who struggle the most – whether or not this explanation, or that activity, will be accessible to those with low reading abilities, weak inference skills, difficulties with number or slow cognition and processing and so on.

Whilst we all try to think about all our pupils when we are planning our lessons, with so many other factors – lack of time, creation of resources, marking loads etc – sometimes we forget the needs of the few to focus on the progress of the many. 

Focus Five therefore acts as a nudge, a steer, a gentle reminder to reorientate efforts towards where they are most needed.

Beyond the classroom

As a school, we have rather latched onto David Didau’s three sentences about education, in particular the second one:

• The most advantaged will succeed despite what schools do.
• To know if you’re successful, only look at data on the most disadvantaged students’ performance.
• What works best for the most disadvantaged students works best for all.

Whilst there is probably a certain amount of oversimplication here, in my mind the spirit of these statements talks to a truth that I think deep down we all recognise, even if we do not openly admit it or realise it in practice.

At Greenshaw, however, we have become much more explicit about our responsibility in addressing educational disadvantage and are increasingly looking at Focus Five data as a measure of our impact. This includes attainment data, but also data on attendance, extra-curricular engagement, wellbeing and so on.

Why I think this is so powerful is because teachers have been at the heart of determining which pupils we should focus on to evaluate our efforts.

Holding ourselves to account for the performance of Focus Five pupils on a Year 8 history assessment, or the number of Focus Five pupils who attend our revision classes, provides stark evidence of what is working and what we still need to change.

It is still early days, of course, but I think this focused approach to looking beyond labels to needs is a promising way of maximising our impact across the whole school. As David suggests, ​‘what works best for the most disadvantaged students works best for all.’

Focus Five zooms in on the needs of our most vulnerable learners in a highly focused yet manageable way.