Student engagement is crucial for educational success, but can be challenging to sustain.

The Ladder School, an alternative-provision setting in Walsall, has around 90 pupils on its roll, most of whom are eligible for pupil premium, and nearly all of whom have special educational needs.

Many arrive with attendance below 50 per cent and have lost faith in the education system.

Our aim is to raise student engagement and develop everyone’s individual potential, starting with the premise that unless students are engaged, progress is unlikely to be made.

Here are examples of how teachers, associate staff and a truly committed multi-academy trust do it:

1. Relevance to the real world

One common question students have is, “How is this going to help me?”, and we strive to get ahead of this and make it clear why our teaching is relevant to students’ real-world aspirations.

In order to “personalise” the learning of our students, for example, lesson questions are often tied to students’ career interests.

By way of illustration, when teaching maths to a student interested in landscape gardening, the topic might be contextualised to calculating job prices and surface areas.

Additionally, information about careers related to each subject is displayed in classrooms, and trips such as theatre visits and animal demonstrations help students connect learning to real-world experiences.

We also bring in outside speakers to motivate students to realise their full potential in myriad fields, from the health and beauty industry to professional sport.

2. Enhancing lessons engagement

We have also had a big focus on CPD sessions dedicated to enhancing staff’s questioning techniques, in a bid to improve pupils’ engagement in and enjoyment of lessons.

Methods highlighted in these sessions include “develop the answer”, “cold calling” and “no opt-out”, and the aim is to deepen understanding, encourage critical thinking and help students apply higher-level vocabulary to access the curriculum.

3. Trackers

Building on this ethos, we added student engagement as a metric in our student trackers, enabling both teachers and students to monitor classroom engagement more effectively.

With support from SLT, staff and students know that this is an important part of the classroom dynamic, and one that is enforced as part of daily routines.

4. Metacognition

Last year, we introduced metacognition to students to help with self-regulation and awareness of their learning processes. This was implemented after CPD training for staff to ensure it is part of their teaching pedagogy and could be tailored to our setting.

Improving students’ ability to plan, monitor and evaluate learning in this way can lead to significant progress. Research suggests that when a student starts to take more ownership of their learning, they can gain as much as an additional seven months’ worth of progress - especially pertinent for students with educational deficits.

5. Student engagement award

Based on student feedback, we also introduced a weekly engagement award. Teachers nominate the most engaged student from each class, and the student with the most nominations receives a £10 voucher and a positive phone call home from SLT.

This phone call has a significant psychological impact - not least because many of our parents had previously received little or nothing in the way of positive feedback from school. The student’s name is displayed on the noticeboard as the “Student Engagement Award Winner”.

Staff also give a “Feelgood Friday” call to a selected student who is felt to have had a positive week of actions that should be celebrated.

Results

While all this is still a work in progress, student engagement has improved significantly and attendance is quickly climbing back above 50 per cent and higher, helping to give many a new enjoyment of school and leading to improvements in behaviour.

Of course, periodic reviews ensure strategies remain relevant, with input from students used to adjust our approaches to teaching.

Ultimately, students are getting to experience a new type of school environment that is more suited to their needs, which helps to re-establish that vital bond with education.

Richard Gifford is the assistant principal at The Ladder School