Ethnicity, Social Class and Gender Achievement - Narrowing the Gap

As part of our wider school improvement role, the National Strategies provides support to raise the attainment of underachieving ethnic minority and white British pupils. Our intention is to help schools tackle underperformance and impact decisively on narrowing gaps in achievement.

We support schools in identifying and working with underachieving groups to improve attainment and increase rates of progress. These include groups such as:

gender groups where attainment is an issue;
specific minority ethnic and faith groups, travellers, new arrivals including asylum seekers and refugees;
pupils who need support to learn English as an additional language;
pupils from deprived households.

We have also produced a range of specific focused resources:

The Black Pupils’ Achievement Project (BPAP) aims to support secondary senior leaders and teachers in raising the achievement of black pupils through self-evaluation and targeted action.

www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/ethnicminorities/raising_achievement/bpaprogramme The New Arrivals Excellence Programme includes a range of highly-regarded resources to support schools including:

a DVD with a booklet of case studies which shows how schools responded creatively to meet the needs of newly-arrived pupils and their families (ref: 00426-2007DVD-EN);
guidance for schools on meeting the needs of pupils who have arrived in school as a result of international migration. The focus is on learning and teaching in the mainstream classroom. Assessment of English language competence may be made using the scale described in A language in common: assessing English as an additional language (ref: 00650-2007BKT-EN).

www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primary/publications/inclusion/naep The Minority Ethnic Achievement Programme provides materials for use nationally including:

management guide to support senior leaders in the welcome, induction and inclusion of newly-arrived pupils learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) through rigorous self-evaluation and targeted action (ref: 00041-2008DWO-EN);
management guide which will support schools in personalising the learning of pupils of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Somali and Turkish heritage in order to raise their attainment (ref: 00069-2007BKT-EN);
guidance document and DVD used with the management guide and providing an emphasis on providing support to muslim pupils (ref: 00043-2008BKT-EN; 00043-2008DVD-EN).

www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/ethnicminorities Resources to support schools to close gender gaps can be found through the
core programmes and linked to the Frameworks.