Increasing learner confidence and boosting grades with CENTURY

Acorn Digital Learning offers high-quality, online alternative learning for KS3 and KS4 learners across the UK. We spoke to Clare Shaw, Assistant Headteacher, about how CENTURY’s personalisation has helped to support learner confidence and boost grades.

Please can you tell us a bit about the learners you work with and your approach at Acorn Digital Learning?

We work with a diverse group of children and young people with SEMH and ASC challenges. Many have struggled to cope with mainstream and specialist settings and have been out of education for some time. Many have additional learning needs or identified barriers to learning.

Our practice is trauma informed, attachment aware and focused on re-engaging the individual in learning through strong, student relationship-focused pedagogy.

What initially prompted you to choose CENTURY for Acorn Digital Learning?

We needed high-quality learning materials that we could adapt to our specialist setting. Due to the range of levels we cater to, we were looking for a tool that could provide challenge and stretch for our accelerated learners and routes with adaptations for those who need more scaffolding. We also wanted a tool that could  be used live in class, for flipped learning and independent learning. The fact that CENTURY provides diagnostics, assessment for learning and planning opportunities, as well as  summative reports was a bonus.

How did you roll out CENTURY successfully? 

For us, it was really important to have consistent support to roll out CENTURY due to the transient nature of our student population and the fact that we can be asked to support students from a few weeks to a full academic year, so there is always admission/discharge. CENTURY provides a simple, easy way to open and close accounts that doesn’t create an excessive administrative burden. 

To help engage external stakeholders who support our young people, we used prompts in the parent/carer/client newsletter to talk about the programme with those in their care.

How do you use CENTURY? 

Initially, we encouraged all staff to use CENTURY for independent learning activities and for use in class as a starter or plenary. Nuggets are set by the teachers with students’ pathways then becoming more personalised depending on how they score on the teacher set nuggets. The focus and stretch area of the dashboard has proved useful to direct students’ learning.

Have you got any top tips for using CENTURY with distance/virtual learners?

We recommend using it in class first of all, to encourage familiarity and logging in. It also allows you to model how to access the courses and search for a topic. It’s also really important to keep plugging, 15 minutes per day, each day and it will improve your grades.

What impact have you seen? 

For students who have taken to the program and internalised the 15 minutes per day, we have seen improvements of up to two levels at GCSE.

Teachers have seen a reduction in workload, with the marking that has been picked up by CENTURY. CENTURY is also useful at informing our lesson planning, particularly where the question level analysis identifies a gap in learning on a topic. The fact that CENTURY nuggets are sharply focused has been really helpful in targeting the focus of our lessons. 

Do you have a student success story?

We have one student who found science a struggle and this calendar year has spent a total of over two days working through the nuggets on topics that she has found the most challenging. As her teachers, we noticed the rapid improvements she was making as well as her increased confidence. She ended up achieving above and beyond her target grade, achieving 65 when she’d been predicted 44. 

What do teachers and students like most about the platform?

We love that it is focussed on small sections of learning at a time so we can fully check understanding of particular topics. Students enjoy seeing the progress they are making and some enjoy the recognition we give to those who work hard on the platform.

To learn more about how you can embed CENTURY at your AP, click here.