Aim for connections, not numbers.

Challenge the numbers-driven narrative
(“We’re told to raise GCSE uptake”—> Increase numbers at GCSE)
Focusing only on numbers is like chasing shadows. What happens if you have massively raised the profile of the faculty, organised several trips, competitions, reviewed your SOW, increased parental engagement, spent hours and hours focusing on numbers and in the end, no increase in students taking up GCSE or A-Level. Does that mean you have failed your appraisal target? Waste of a year? All the effort in vain?

“Increasing numbers” should not be a target, it is a by-product of the things you do to foster connections. If schools focus only on numbers, the relationship becomes transactional and it is easy to feel resentful, demoralised when numbers are not up and question whether all effort was in vain! Was it? What about all the experiences, all the connections built? Not acknowledged in an appraisal and left is the sentiment that we are not doing things the right way . But if we expect students to connect, grow, and thrive, students rise to that expectation. (The Pygmalion Effect)

Because we can’t all (Departments) increase numbers. If we work our socks off to achieve that target, another department will decrease their numbers. Will they then be asked to work on their numbers? Ours will then decrease. And so on…. One in, one out.

Yes to raising the profile of the faculty, yes to providing more cultural experiences and opportunities but before we just focus on “Increasing numbers”, we have to think about why? Do we have the capacity? Do we have the team? Can we sustain another group? What if the class reaches 32 in a mixed ability group and there’s no possibility to split the group? What is the long term plan? What happens next?

Fostering connection supports long-term motivation and uptake. Celebrate what you do without being “numbers-driven”.
You don’t grow numbers, you grow relationships. When students feel a genuine connection, with the teacher, with the subject, with each other, retention follows naturally.
Challenge the numbers- driven narrative and rephrase your target into something that celebrates what you do.
Students stay where they feel they belong.

And if numbers don’t increase, it does not mean the experience did not add value to the students’ lives!