Study Plus is a new national course being offered to students who may be very much on the border of achieving 5 A-C's for a variety of reasons.

To further develop their skills and increase their application of skills to all subjects thus enabling them to increase their potential for success, they will be encouraged to opt for this course instead of one option.

The aim is to improve their chances!

Study Plus is an approach rather than a syllabus. Many students find the literacy and numeric demands of GCSE courses challenging. The students may have a very good understanding of the content, ideas and issues but find it hard to express and explain theses adequately in both coursework and examinations.

The Aims of Study Plus
The Study Plus approach is designed for: Students who end Key Stage 3 on a level 4 or with a low level 5 in Mathematics and/or English

The aims are to:

• Accelerate the progress of these students in English and/or mathematics so that they have a better chance of achieving a grade C;
• Strengthen key areas of weakness in literacy and numeracy;
• Support student’s learning and motivation in relation to English, Mathematics and other subjects;
• Have a positive impact on attainment in two or three more GCSE subjects through the application of literacy, numeracy and general learning skills in context;

Study Plus: key features
The Study Plus approach is flexible so that provision can be designed by teachers to meet the needs of particular groups of students in their own school context. However, a Study Plus course will have 3 key features:

1. Study Plus is a 5-6 term programme that is timetabled during the school day for two lessons a week – typically students opt for it as part of the school’s option programme.

2. Study Plus is planned as a sequence of around 20 English or Mathematics units or a mixture of the two – each unit lasting 3-4 weeks.

3. Teaching in each unit is focused by a cluster of curricular targets that have been identified as relevant to the group and individuals by using the English and Mathematics progression maps.

The relationship between Study Plus and GCSE courses
Study Plus students’ academic achievement at the end of Key Stage 4 will be demonstrated through their GCSE results in a range of subjects. By strengthening crucial skills in English and/or Mathematics, Study Plus aims to help students learn better in their GCSE subject lessons and gain better results at the end of the course. This connection will be particularly strong in the case of English and Mathematics but it is also expected that improving literacy and numeracy will have an impact on the wider curriculum. In order to secure this wider impact, Study Plus will actively encourage students to apply new skills in the context of their work for their GCSE subjects. To be effective, this process should go beyond showing students the wider relevance of their Study plus learning and include a requirement for students to bring work from other subjects into the Study Plus context so they can demonstrate the transfer of learning. For instance, one student might be given time in a Study Plus lesson to review with the TA to what extent they have used paragraphs effectively in a piece of history coursework.

A key role of the Study Plus teacher and TA is, therefore, to create for individual students active links between their Study Plus learning and their GCSE work. In the case of English and Mathematics the links are clear. In English GCSE, for instance, it is often the case that the demands of following both the English and English Literature syllabuses mean that the teacher has little time to follow up individual weaknesses in students’ underlying reading and writing skills. These weaknesses are often identified and commented upon in marking but there is rarely an opportunity to pursue these aspects of the subject as a main objective in lessons. Study Plus can fill this gap with a programme of interesting work that is worth doing for its own sake as well being suited to developing targeted skills.

Effective cross-curricular links can be made in mathematics where, for example, students will be using data in their science course. If the teacher is able to use this data within a Study Plus unit it will add considerably to the students’ work on reasoning with data. Another powerful approach for the students in Study Plus will be to use case studies on, for example, the environment or natural disasters such as a Tsunami to support their number work and their application of proportional reasoning. From the students’ responses it will be possible to tailor extra support and address some of the issues raised by GCSE examiners when describing how students struggle to use and apply their mathematical knowledge and understanding.

What’s in it for the students
Many students moving into Key Stage 4 with weaknesses in literacy and numeracy will have experienced difficulty, if not failure, in these areas over a number of years. They may already have experienced additional programmes intended to help them ‘catch up’. So, importantly, Study Plus must not be seen as just more of the same: more English, more mathematics, more catch up.

Students opting into Study Plus should experience a sequence of units which are built around topics or themes that are interesting to them in their own right and, within that context, they also receive:

• First class teaching that helps them with the essential areas of English and/or Mathematics that they find difficult;
• Support with learning that can be used in other GCSE subjects to improve their work and chances of getting a good grade;
• Quality time from a TA who works with them and will help them to review their progress and plan future success