Wellbeing and early detection of needs: key factors for efficiency in very socially vulnerable schools

Which schools achieve better student progress than expected despite their vulnerable circumstances? What do they do differently? The study “Resilient Schools: excellence in schools challenged by poverty” by EsadeEcPol, La Caixa Foundation and Save the Children, answers these questions by pinpointing and examining schools where educational progress is significantly higher than expected despite starting out with unfavorable socioeconomic circumstances. The study calls these schools resilient. It uses innovative methodology making it possible to measure the schools’ actual contribution to their students’ progress – something not systematically deployed in Spain previously.

The method entailed the use of longitudinal microdata of academic results and socioeconomic circumstances in primary schools in the Canary Islands and secondary schools in Catalonia, and was accompanied by an in-depth qualitative analysis offering an insight into the organizational and teaching practices that underpin these results.

According to Maria Gutiérrez-Domènech, economist at the “la Caixa” Foundation Observatory, “in order to measure school progress adequately, the degree of vulnerability in the surroundings must be taken into account. Otherwise, the schools that achieve a greater impact despite adversity will be undervalued.” Against this backdrop, “it is essential to systematically identify schools where educational progress is better than expected despite very vulnerable situations, and to facilitate the application of their models and practices in the other schools.”

Key outcomes

The quantitative analysis applied different methodologies in each region and level of education in order to pinpoint the schools where educational progress was better than expected in highly vulnerable contexts:

Canary Islands (primary schools): 
•    Of the schools with greater social complexity, 38% were resilient in maths and 44% in language skills. 
•    Of these schools, 43% (maths) and 58% (reading) made a considerable contribution to their students’ progress. 
•    The school’s contribution to their students’ progress bore little correlation to their socioeconomic level. 

Catalonia (secondary schools): 
•    Between 41% and 46% of the most vulnerable schools are resilient in at least one subject.
•    However, only between 11% and 16% of them (depending on the subject) have a significant impact on their students' progress. 
•    The correlation between the added value of schools and their socioeconomic level is persistent: only 1 in 5 schools in the most vulnerable tercile achieves a positive and significant added value in mathematics (as opposed to 72% in the highest tercile), and the gap also exists in language skills. In other words, although some schools are effective in all settings, those that achieve outstanding results whilst dealing with vulnerable students are far less common – making their work particularly laudable.

In addition to pinpointing schools in which educational progress is higher than expected in highly vulnerable contexts in specific settings, the analysis of progress data in Catalonia and the Canary Islands offers insights into why some schools achieve better results than others in highly vulnerable contexts, and also challenges certain commonplace concepts:

•    Students of migrant origin, despite starting from a lower absolute level, make more progress than native students when the starting point of their performance level is taken into account, particularly as regards reading. 
•    As for mathematics, once adjustments are made for students’ previous performance, the gender gap showing worse results for girls in absolute terms disappears: boys and girls make similar progress when their starting point is taken into account. 
•    Finally, the type of school day also makes a difference. In Catalonia, without considering other factors, the likelihood of a school with a continuous school day being resilient is almost 20 percentage points lower than a school with a split school day. 

The qualitative analysis of a sample of these schools reveals certain characteristics in common. In all the schools in which educational progress is better than expected in highly vulnerable contexts, their culture focuses on students’ well-being and on the early detection of needs, they are well organized and coordinated, they foster the stability of their teaching staff and remain in close contact with students’ families.

Lessons learnt and recommendations

The report highlights that schools with a high proportion of socially vulnerable students can offset imbalances stemming from their origin by applying robust organizational and teaching strategies. The report therefore recommends an increase in the incentives and acknowledgement of educational leadership tasks and roles, a wider range of extracurricular activities enabling more and better time at school, and restructuring how teachers are deployed in order to bolster the stability of the teaching staff and ensure that they can work in a coherent, cohesive manner. 

“This study reflects a clear pattern, particularly in secondary schools: schools in complex environments are two to three times less likely to achieve a positive added value. This is why it is so important to systematically and rigorously analyze what characterizes school resilience in Spain, in a landscape in which schools are increasingly affected by social vulnerability and educational complexity,” said Lucía Cobreros, a researcher at EsadeEcPol. “Our findings showcase the need to shape educational policies and practices in order to increase the possibilities of success at the greatest possible number of schools,” added Lucas Gortazar, director of EsadeEcPol’s education area.

According to Michelle Quintero, head of Impact (Save the Children’s social innovation laboratory), “the study clearly demonstrates that current educational policies are far from optimal as regards the success of resilient centers. Hence the importance of shifting towards an evidence-based public management of education that is able to pinpoint what works, try out new solutions and scale them up where they make the greatest impact.

The analysis shows that schools that achieve better than expected educational progress despite having a challenging environment are not a miracle, but the result of a collective effort based on a shared mission. In a scenario of increasing student diversity, a greater prevalence of psychosocial problems and greater educational needs, the report highlights the importance of moving towards evidence-based educational policies that make it possible to determine what works and strengthen the centers that manage to overcome their initial disadvantages.