This week Mr Davies has been taking assemblies, and helping our students reflect on the importance of marginal gains.

“The aggregation of marginal gains” was part of the success of British Cycling in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic Games and beyond. The philosophy was to look at every aspect of performance, and to look for any tiny improvements that could be made. Heat pads to warm up cyclists’ muscles to the optimum temperature; tiny savings in weight from each pedal crank; cyclists travelling with their own pillows to reduce the chance of catching a virus from hotel pillows – these were just some of the examples of marginal gains made by the cyclists.

On their own, each tweak to the programme might only make a millisecond of difference to the cyclist’s overall time around the track. But, the philosophy said, if you made lots and lots of those tiny gains, they would all add up and might give you the edge over a competitor.

Mr Davies then asked students to consider the marginal gains they could make at school to improve their educational performance. He gave three examples:

1. Attendance: Mr Davies explained the difference that attendance makes. He asked: is 90% attendance good enough? 90% means that you miss one day in every ten – that’s one per fortnight. If you have 90% attendance over a school year, that means you have missed four weeks of education. If you have 90% attendance over five years at school, you would have missed half a year’s worth of lessons. We know that many students struggle with health issues and can’t achieve 100% attendance. But the point Mr Davies was making was that every day of attendance is a day of education – and every little bit matters.
2. Punctuality: We are really insistent that students are punctual to their lessons. You might not think that being five minutes late to a lesson matters – but it does. It disrupts the learning of others. It means the teacher has to re-start and re-explain the beginning of the lesson, wasting the time of those that were punctual. Then Mr Davies did some sums: if you were five minutes late to every lesson, you would miss 25 minutes a day, which adds up to two lessons a week, or 79 lessons a year – that’s three weeks in a school year. So that five minutes matters.
3. Attention: when called to attention, we require our students to be silent straight away and show they are listening by tracking the speaker with their eyes. Again, this is about the aggregation of marginal gains, ensuring that transitions between tasks are swift and that as little time is wasted as possible. These tiny differences will all add up, over time, to significant gains in learning time.

Mr Davies then challenged the students to think about their own marginal gains as they went about their lessons this term. It might be that little extra effort on a classwork or homework task. It may be that final check through a piece of work before declaring it “finished.” It may be that little bit of initiative to push learning further, ask a question, or take on an extension or challenge task. It may just be sitting up straight and paying that extra bit of attention to an explanation or a demonstration. On its own, no single action is going to make the difference: added up, they will definitely help.

Finally, Mr Davies reinforced the importance of good, safe behaviour at social time. Injuries and accidents can happen at any time, and sometimes they can’t be helped. However, students need to ensure they are minimising the risk of accidents happening by playing safely; injuries, if they do happen, are painful and distressing – but they can also lead to lost learning time.

So, what marginal gains will you make?