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Share In this spotlight, we talk to Mark Moorhouse, the CEO at Watergrove Trust, about his D6 (Day 6) initiative that is bringing an innovative approach to tutoring support in the form of sixth-form peer coaching on Saturdays.
D6 has already shown immense impact on the outcomes of pupils who attend the sessions at Matthew Moss High School, the school where Mark started the D6 project when he was headteacher, so we ask Mark to share his experience on what is D6, how it came about, tips for implementing a programme like this and how he plans to scale the project.
In this spotlight you will find:
- What is the D6 (Day 6) project
- How peer coaching can improve outcomes
- How to approach attendance and funding for projects like D6
- Where D6 has grown and adapted in Britain
Mark's Story
How the D6 Project Started
D6 is a Saturday morning peer-coaching event, which initially took place every Saturday at Matthew Moss High School during the term, from 9 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon.
D6 came about because back in 2014, we really needed to push our outcomes after an Ofsted inspection rated us Requires Improvement in 2013, and staff were overworked. But the school community was facing a bit of an existential problem: how to balance the need for better exam results with the humanistic side of education? We didn’t want to become an exam factory, but we knew we had to do something.
I was inspired by the work of Sugata Mitra and his “hole in the wall” experiment, which showed the power of peer learning by putting computers in the walls of villages in India. This story of how children were soaking up learning by watching and working with the computer really hung around for me.
However, my ‘aha! moment’ came when looking for a college for my own son and observing sixth-form pupils in the college we were visiting. I knew these sixth-form pupils had just navigated GCSEs to come out with fantastic results. I also knew that half of them were wiping tables for minimum wage on a Saturday morning.
If research shows us that learning is a social act, why not bring these sixth-form pupils into the process? Why couldn’t we pay them at least the same minimum wage or even more than that to become learning coaches – peer coaches – for other pupils? In some ways, they are more technically sharp about the content that would need to be covered. I figured it was worth a try.
The First Day of the D6 (Day 6) Project
So, with some safeguarding training for the sixth-form coaches and the promise of a free breakfast for all attendees, I extended the invitation to pupils:
I said, “Between 9:00 and 1:00, come for four hours. Bring your work—any homework, anything you’re studying, any revision you need. It’s non-uniform. There will be free breakfast and free coaching. If you want to come, come. If you don’t, don’t come.”
I wanted the process to be purely elective and not targeted at any underperforming groups.
On the first Saturday, we had 10 coaches and 33 learners attend. After some “speed-dating” style introductions to understand the learning goals of each learner, off they went. I remember so clearly that morning, looking into a French room and seeing two sixth-formers with the whiteboard teaching momentum to three learners! They were there for over an hour, and the energy of those pupils when they came out of the session – they came out as experts.
Their homework was beautifully done, but, what’s more, is that they understood the content. It was a leap of faith for us all for what would come of D6, but the proof of concept was successful; we just had to keep going.
Impact of the D6 Project at Matthew Moss High School
In 2014, Matthew Moss High School was a comparatively small school of around 800 pupils. However, the D6 project saw around 80 attendees in the first few weeks of its existence. At its peak, we saw about 25% of the school population attending!
Part of the success was due to keeping the process streamlined: I oversaw the project voluntarily, four teaching assistants were there to help, 10 sixth-form coaches, and the caretaker opened up the school on a Saturday. The breakfast was dropped off the day before, so that was ready to go, and all other materials were free.
I think that’s why we’ve managed to be so successful in raising outcomes – we kept the principle of D6 so simple. By 2018, we’d risen to 2nd place in the ranking of Rochdale mainstream secondary schools, from being in the 9th or 10th ranking of the 12 when we started the project.
The impact on learners of different demographics was even more impressive. Pupils who attended 17 or more D6 sessions and were disadvantaged learners (learners in receipt of pupil premium funding) had an average Progress 8 of 1.5. If they weren’t disadvantaged but attended 17 or more D6 sessions, the results were still 0.8, which is almost a full grade above the national average.
The D6 session specifically benefited disadvantaged pupils and had twice the effect on their Progress 8. The impact on learners of different demographics was even more impressive. Pupils who attended 17 or more D6 sessions and were disadvantaged learners (learners in receipt of pupil premium funding) had an average Progress 8 of 1.5. If they weren’t disadvantaged but attended 17 or more D6 sessions, the results were still 0.8, which is almost a full grade above the national average. The D6 session specifically benefited disadvantaged pupils and had twice the effect on their Progress 8.
But what’s amazing about D6? It’s an intervention that’s a “just in time”, not a “just in case” system. First of all, we are not assessing anyone because the learners know their gaps. So it gives them permission to say freely, without shame or implication, “Yeah, I’m stuck here.” In a completely safe space. And then you’ve got the sixth-formers, who can attend to that in 5 minutes. They say, “I’ve got you.”
It’s running for its 10th year now. I was at the D6 just recently and there were over 200 pupils attending. Even now, to see it happening is an absolute buzz.
Tips for Implementing a Program Like This
We keep D6 attendance purely voluntary, but we do some work with communication to get the pupils who need it most to attend.
Of course, there are those pupils in attendance who are already highly engaged learners- they do even better, and you get that critical mass needed for a Saturday learning event. And then, there are those who need the additional positive peer pressure to come to school on a Saturday. By playing to the social roles and getting through to friendship group leaders, all the while emphasising that this is not a punitive process, we tend to get a broad set of pupils from a variety of backgrounds attending.
Clear communication needed around D6, specifically with parents, is critical. We developed an attendance protocol and made it clear in contracting with parents that this isn’t a normal day at school and we won’t be contacting them within 5 minutes if their child hasn’t arrived because we don’t know if they’re coming or not. So we made it clear to parents that it’s their responsibility to follow up, but what we do from our end is register the learners electronically as they come in the same system we use for attendance already. So whatever system your school uses, make sure you use that to your advantage.
Affordability is of course a big aspect of how schools and trusts choose to implement new initiatives. Per pupil expenses have gone up since the start of the project, but the impact of four hours tutoring free for pupils compared to paid weekly tutoring they may be seeking elsewhere (or not able to afford at all) is priceless. Pupil Premium funding is key. Using this funding in this way allows for tutoring and beyond because the pupils aren’t just working on their study habits, their own sense of self in terms of being a learner is evolving. The D6 setting looks more like a college or university learning space in a school on a Saturday. So we’ve found our way to be highly sustainable and it’s been largely thanks to Pupil Premium funding.
Scaling beyond Matthew Moss
It’s been interesting to hear other school takes on D6. Although some schools have taken the initiative and run with it, others are more sceptical about school on a Saturday. Taking into account your community’s demographics is key. I think there is historical context behind White British families keeping their Saturdays sacred as a result of the Industrial Revolution, but migrant families having more “on the line” in regards to their place in society and, therefore, at times, more driven by a growth mindset to take all opportunities given to them.
But I really want to emphasise that once you see it in action, it’s hard to deny the wonder of it all. The energy of the learners when they leave D6 at 1 pm is not exhaustion; there’s an elatedness to them. It’s because they were driving their learning and so they feel satisfied after the day. They feel to some degree a weight of work’s gone because they know that the important work has been done, but they’ve enjoyed doing it and they know they’ve done it well.
There are other examples of how schools around Britain have implemented their version of D6 with various iterations, from having teachers teach on Saturdays to language-focused sessions for younger learners. Even having year 5-6 pupils work with younger learners as they’ve done at Braintcroft Primary. There’s no doctrine to it; it’s about opening your school on a Saturday and seeing what wonderful things can happen.
I’ll admit that social aspects around Saturdays, such as sports, are ingrained in society’s culture and can make it difficult to get the project up and running. It really comes down to the culture of the school community.
A good example I’ve seen is XP School Doncaster, where the school’s mindset is about agency. They work with project-based learning and emphasise that pupils are agents of their own learning.
So, the key principle of D6 is not a stretch for them. They don’t want passive learners, and the whole mindset and mission of the school promote that agency for pupils. So it’s gone down really well there.
We plan to scale D6 throughout Watergrove Trust. I can’t preach it to the rest of the world if we don’t make it a trust-wide activity. So by September 2024 all schools, primary and secondary, will be implementing D6 days at Watergrove Trust. But it takes time and some convincing. Secondary schools get on board a bit easier than primary schools, so we’re inviting people into the space to see and feel the energy of the event, and we’ll get them to come around.