Dear Editor,
Firstly, I am a proud Guyanese, a senior secondary school leader in the UK and fortunate enough to have witnessed first hand and read numerous reports on the benefits of study support on educational outcomes in the UK and Europe. Spain has an excellent model, similar to those alluded to earlier by Dr Jeffery in the US and Japan (‘Study support’ could improve educational outcomes’ SN, October 15).
Secondly, extra lessons (although important in realising educational outcomes) is just a sub-set of the vast range of study support activities (voluntary out-of-school-hours learning) that take place before or after school, at lunch and break times, at weekends and during school holidays. Study support activities can include breakfast clubs, homework clubs, sport, music and the arts, and opportunities to pursue particular interests. I have years of experience witnessing the impact of study support on a range of variables in the UK and I also benefited from the extra-lessons culture during my primary and secondary days in the late ’60s and ’70s at home. Having read about the Minister’s warning to outlaw extra lessons on school premises, I get the impression that not a lot has changed in the last 50 years or more. I agree that the time for change is now and so do your readers (Al Fernandes et al). However, to outlaw extra lessons forthwith and not have an alternative (see Dr Jeffery’s suggestion supported by Al Fernandes’ penultimate sentence) to replace it would see the emergence of more bottom-house schools which are not as well resourced as the school. More importantly, the risk to children (all sorts) is greater or will become greater without a viable alternative such as a well-structured study support programme, managed by the regional educational authorities and schools.
Thirdly, research has shown that study support has a real impact on those who attend, in terms of increasing academic attainment and improving behaviour and attendance. The more relaxed atmosphere of out-of-school hours activities, and the fact that pupils choose to take part, have been motivating factors for participating pupils, and in many cases this can transfer to the classroom. Study support is now widely recognised as having an impact on a variety of education priorities. Out-of-hours activities can contribute to removing barriers to achievement (such as disaffection, crime, behaviour problems, etc), and so can help to transform primary and secondary education and establish links to the wider community. One of your readers mentioned “workable student to teacher ratios” which suggests that class sizes are large in Guyana. Extra lessons delivered within the study support umbrella are designed to tackle this issue. After all, learning is a social activity, shaped and reshaped by interaction with parents and teachers, but also very powerfully by peers. In terms of environment, learning is deeply affected by time and space, of which the school and its environment is one such place. Therefore, when considering the delivery of study support programmes, other safe environments such as church buildings, local libraries, sports grounds or clubs, museums and galleries should be in the mix.
Finally, my hope is for those persons in responsible positions to effect change, and to do so without haste so that participation in study support can be enjoyed by all students and not the few.
Study support provides opportunities to observe learning close up in differing social settings, informal as well as formal, relaxed and spontaneous as well as structured and directed.
This was one of the reasons why study support was such a significant complement to classroom learning in the UK, Spain, Japan and the US. It is time for my colleagues in Guyana to, at the very least, start the conversation to implement the changes recommended by Dr Jeffery in making the case for study support.
Yours faithfully,
Brendon Mounter
UK
