There are increasing demands on teachers to improve student achievement, particularly in relation to numeracy and literacy. The focus of research aimed at enhancing student academic outcomes is often on the instructional environment of the classroom and effective teaching practices which increase student academic outcomes whereas teaching and learning take place within a social environment in which relationships play a significant part in contributing to student achievement (Wentzel, 1996). Indeed, Hattie (2009) has shown that a positive teacher-student relationship has large effects on student achievement, d=.72.

Teachers’ expectations have been shown to contribute to student achievement in many countries such as the US (e.g., McKown & Weinstein, 2008), the UK (e.g., Huss-Keeler, 1997), New Zealand (Rubie-Davies, 2007) the Netherlands, (e.g., van den Bergh, Denessen, Hornstra, Voeten & Holland, 2010) and Belgium (e.g, Spreybroeck, Kuppens, Van Damme, Van Petegem, Lamote, Beenen, & de Bilde, 2012) yet there has never been an intervention study designed to raise expectations for all students by changing teacher practices.

Within the expectation field, teachers’ expectations have traditionally been examined in relation to individual students. Some researchers have examined student characteristics that influence teachers’ expectations, for example, ethnicity (e.g., Van den Bergh, et al., 2010). Other researchers have investigated the teacher behaviours that portray their expectations to students (e.g., Brophy, 1985). A further group have studied how students interpret teacher behaviours (e.g., Weinstein, 2002). A few researchers have studied how teacher beliefs can moderate their expectations resulting in differential outcomes for students. For example, Babad (2009) has studied how the behaviours of high and low bias teachers (those whose expectations are easily influenced by stereotypes versus those who do not treat students differentially) are interpreted by students.

Recently, Rubie-Davies has identified high and low expectation teachers – those who have respectively high or low expectations for all their students, relative to achievement. High expectation teachers have been shown to have large, positive effects on student learning, d = 1.05, whereas low expectation teachers appear to have little effect on the academic progress of their students, d = .02. The current intervention study was framed around the findings of Rubie-Davies (2006; 2007; 2008; Rubie-Davies & Peterson, 2011) which have shown that high expectation teachers teach their students in flexible grouping arrangements rather than in ability groups like the low expectation teachers and they foster student collaboration. High expectation teachers create a much warmer and supportive class climate than their low expectation peers. A further difference between the high and low expectation teachers is in using goal setting to enhance student motivation, increase evaluation and promote student autonomy. Low expectation teachers did not engage in goal setting. These practices of high expectation teachers formed the basis of the intervention described in the method section. It was hypothesized that the intervention would result in increased student achievement when compared with students whose teachers were in the control group. It was further hypothesized that the expectations of the intervention teachers would increase relative to those of the control group.

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