Teaching Approaches to Promote Consistent ... - Learning Wales

number of schools dropped further to 7 (0.6% of schools in trawls 1 and 2combined).This suggests that school level consistency is not a valid way of proceeding with thisanalysis. It is possible that teachers used the same teaching approaches year on yearand gained a different pattern of results. This does not negate the value of exploringthe way in which schools work with their “border line” pupils but, it does suggest thatschool-level consistency is difficult to investigate. Thus in the next sections findingsconcerning school-based issues related to performance are considered and tentativesuggestions made.7.2 The nature of the curriculum7.2.1. Perceived areas of difficultyFindings showed that teachers are aware of areas in each subject that they, and pupils,find difficult. However, with only a few exceptions these appeared unrelated neitherto the teachers’ subject knowledge nor to their pedagogical subject knowledge. Alsoit was evident that, in many cases, the areas identified seem too widely defined to bevery useful. Two suggestions arise from these findings:Suggestion 1In mathematics, teachers would benefit from being helped to be more precise aboutidentifying different aspects of problem solving and to build up a portfolio of the kinds ofactivities that would help pupils develop problem solving skills in a variety of contexts.These should be based on the difficulties that pupils have and expectations of the curricularknowledge they should possess at different stages.Suggestion 2In English, teachers would benefit from being helped to be more precise about identifyingdifferent aspects of writing and to build up a portfolio of the kinds of activities that wouldhelp pupils develop their writing skills in a variety of contexts. These should be based onthe difficulties that pupils have and curricular expectations of them at different stages.88