Claire Crichton-Allen, an experienced Head of Department and recent guest of our “How We Did It…” webinar series, speaks to Tassomai about incentivising students without any budget and exceeding the National Average by 10% to get her school’s best-ever GCSE science results…

Getting started – consistent, persistent, insistent

After the initial setup with our IT department to get the foundations in place, it was a case of selling to the students, so we simply made it mandatory - it was their homework. 

We had no real money to throw at incentives but realised that the kids wanted to be at the front of the lunch queue, so we swapped lunch passes for good performance. From there it was about being consistent, persistent, insistent and it became self perpetuating as the students started to notice that it was having an impact.

All carrot, no stick

We didn’t have any sanctions if they didn’t complete their Tassomai but showed the leaderboards in class and across year groups, signposted it throughout the department with lots of poster reminders and encouraged healthy competition, so it became class pressure to not be bottom of the leaderboard.

The D6 Club

Some students didn’t have access to their own tech, so kids would come to the computer rooms for Tassomai Lunch Club so that we could make it as accessible as possible. The demographic and area we worked with was quite deprived so having a quiet, warm space to study was quite a luxury. 

We then realised that we could extend this as we had rooms available at the school on a Saturday. A lot of sixth form students were working locally for minimum wage, so we started paying them for ‘day six’ where they would come in on a Saturday and work with the GCSE students to help them to study, and we paid them more than the minimum wage. It offered heating, WiFi and tech for those who needed it but we also found that the peer-to-peer revision worked really well.

Measuring success

The proof really was in the pudding, we’d had fairly poor results for years and obviously lots of other things were going on, but it wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that Tassomai had a significant impact and we exceeded 10% over the national average – the school’s best-ever results and the best results in the borough.

It was a huge sign post that showed we were really doing something right. The repetition and low stakes quizzing that Tassomai uses really gave students the confidence and a base of foundational knowledge that helped our other interventions to really take root and make a difference.

Claire’s advice for other teachers

If you’re going to invest in it, you have to do it 100% – buying the book won’t get it read, you have to have a consistent strategy and have it become the language of your department as a team. Make a concerted effort to get everyone on mission.

The only thing I’d do differently if doing it now is that I would have got Tassomai into the school earlier! It wasn’t the beginning of the academic year when we started, so it would have been slightly more seamless if we started it off in September but it still worked well for us.

Science departments can become a silo in a lot of schools and as we were the only one using Tassomai to start with, it could have been better communicated to other departments so that they understood what students were talking about if they want to complete Tassomai in form time or use it for other subjects, which started to happen.

Encouraging parental involvement

When we first started using Tassomai we had a Tassomai stand at parents evenings and open days to explain what it was and some computers setup for them to give it a try themselves. As parents then understood what it was, they also pushed it from home and were getting the most of the weekly Progress Reports. Parents know students are always on their phone, so while they’re there, they may as well do their Tassomai.

Read more from Claire: ”Rapid results in just a few months”

Or watch the webinar where she speaks to Murray about how she used Tassomai to successful effect:

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