Tassomai at Key Stage 3
Heathfield Community School is one of the schools using Tassomai’s new Key Stage 3 content, with a particular focus on their Pupil Premium students. Read more about how they’re implementing the program and their progress so far.
Supporting our pupil premium students in core subjects.
By Emily Mason, Pupil Premium Coordinator at Heathfield Community School
I am one of two Pupil Premium Coordinators at Heathfield Community School near Taunton, Somerset. We have approximately 1,400 students on roll and 23% are Pupil Premium. We rebranded Pupil Premium within our school as the Learning Enhancement Office (LEO), a positive space within school to enhance your learning. Our role is to identify, address and monitor the needs of all Pupil Premium students within our cohort, and a huge part of the work we do is focused on narrowing the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students.
We introduced Tassomai in 2018 for selected KS4 students and delivered daily, 20 minute intervention sessions for our Year 11s ahead of their GCSEs, which proved successful. Students told us it was easy to use and access, the information and key knowledge was brilliant, and from a teacher’s perspective, the data Tassomai produces is excellent.
We were really excited to learn that Tassomai planned to launch a KS3 quizzing platform covering English, Maths and Science in September 2019.
Our priority for the new academic year was delivering intervention to our Year 7 and Year 8 Pupil Premium cohort as early as possible, especially as some of our biggest barriers are around poor literacy levels and limited vocabulary, areas which Tassomai’s English content covers. Our students were identified as those who achieved below 100 in their KS2 SATs scores, as well as more able students who we wanted to continue to engage with the curriculum and school as a whole.
How we encourage good Tassomai usage
For our Year 7s...
Students receive a PSHE lesson once a fortnight, we use this session to deliver Tassomai and they are expected to complete their “daily goal” within this time. This session gives us a chance to touch base with the student, remind them of the importance of quizzing using Tassomai, and it’s also an opportunity to praise good practice and use of the app.
Students are invited to LEO Bonus Sessions which run before and after school and at lunchtimes. The minimum expectation is to attend at least one session a week.
Parents are sent a leaflet introducing Tassomai and outlining the expected use of the program at home. We also call parents and check in with them to find out how well students are using the program out of school hours.
As well as the leaflet, parents are sent a magnet with the website URL and login details for their child.
For our Year 8s
Whilst we do not have curriculum time with these students, we run 20 minute tutor time sessions multiple times a week. These are compulsory so students must come along and complete their daily goals.
We then call parents to make sure students are using the app from home and we ensure that students are attending at least one of our bonus sessions each week.
Year 8 parents also receive the introductory leaflet and magnet with login details and information about best practice.
Why Tassomai works for us
A speedy, yet hugely effective tool for intervention
Curriculum time is precious. Teaching content in lessons is essential, and whilst we deliver English skills lessons once a week for our students, we have noticed that for our disadvantaged cohort, SPAG and vocabulary are costing them marks when it gets to Year 11. Tassomai is teaching our students new words which we are then setting them the challenge of being used in a sentence that day. It is reminding students constantly of the placements of punctuation and supporting them to develop better sentence structure.
For Science, students are learning tier two words that help them access their lessons in line with more able peers.
“I was able to tell the teacher what photosynthesis meant because I’d just seen it on Tassomai, I would not have known that before!”
Tassomai for us isn’t just for weaker students, but for all abilities. It is cementing and developing knowledge in a frequent and rapid manner. Tassomai’s innovative ability to re-quiz students on answers they are frequently getting wrong, and the way the questions are re-worded throughout the quiz, presenting them from different angles, is challenging our students in an exceptionally efficient way.
We can deliver the sessions throughout the day and students are genuinely excited to join us and complete their Tassomai daily goal!
Importantly, we are able to check accuracy and usage levels, which means we can reward students for frequent and effective use as well as pick up on students who are not quizzing as much as we would like them to.
At KS4, a knowledge builder and gap closer
Tassomai’s KS3 content has also been used to help our weaker KS4 students which has been a really effective strategy. Students are engaged in using the simple quizzing app whilst building upon some basic knowledge allowing them to better access their usual lessons. We hope to see a positive shift at our Assessment Point 2 in February 2020 for our Year 11 students who are accessing KS3 Tassomai.
Supporting students with behavioural needs
We have also found Tassomai is a quick win for students who on average have higher behavioural needs than others. If students are sent to our Ready to Learn facility we are able to ensure their learning continues throughout the day by completing their daily goal and bonus goals on Tassomai. For students who are frequently out of lesson due to complex lifestyle or behavioural needs, Tassomai is one way we can help to boost the student’s confidence and ensure they are accessing key skills for core subjects.
Ultimately, for us, we have found Tassomai at KS3 is helping us plug gaps in learning for low ability students across all year groups, as well as continuing to promote the learning for more of our disaffected students. Tassomai is also positively driving our more able students by enhancing their knowledge of tier two words as well their vocabulary generally.
Overall benefits so far
As a department we have noticed the following positive impacts as a result of frequent engaged use of Tassomai:
Increase in parental engagement due to levels of feedback home about usage
Positive rewards for students creating a wider positive outlook on school
Closing the vocabulary gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged
Confidence building tool
Positive use of time for more disengaged students
Healthy and positive competition between students
More conversations taking place around ability and academic need for students
