There are five years worth of teachers that have never worked with National Curriculum levels, so having this information is good. It puts where we are now into context.  The document is here.

As usual, we suggest you look at the parts of the document that apply to you.

The removal of levels was hoped to

• provide the chance for increasing pupil motivation and engagement
• make better use of formative assessment in the classroom
• reduce the time spent by teachers in recording and tracking
• release time for more in-depth teaching and formative assessment

Whether or not that has been the case in your school will depend on how its leaders have approached things.

Case studies tend to be the best evidence (as long as they haven’t been chosen to make a specific point whilst disregarding any alternative evidence). With this is mind, have a look at the blue boxes for examples. Here are some extracts-

p19: Example 1: one school’s response to AWL
A secondary academy developed its own bespoke assessment system which has subsequently been adopted by other schools in the MAT. The approach is underpinned by the school’s belief that assessment should be driven by curriculum design. Curriculum
leads began by devising key performance indicators (KPIs) based on their curriculum and what they expected students to achieve by the end of year 11 (in their GCSEs). They then worked backwards to identify what needed to be achieved at different points along
the way. The curriculum and KPIs focus on 3 key skill areas – knowledge, understanding and literacy. Teachers devised their own summative tests to ensure that they related to the school’s curriculum. A teacher explained how this prioritised high-quality teaching:
‘It’s made us write the Scheme of Work first and think about the learning and the assessment comes afterwards. Whereas before [we] would have written all the assessments and then written the Scheme of Work around the assessment.’

p20: A senior leader said that the staff were pleased to remove levels, because they considered them to be ‘meaningless’. Now the focus has moved towards students learning the curriculum content and meeting individual targets, with assessment being used to monitor and support this.

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Example 5 p42: improved communication with parents
Staff at this large maintained primary school had found it challenging to engage parents in their child’s education. Prior to the removal of levels, staff identified a need to work with parents to explain the upcoming changes and the details of their new approach. They wrote to parents using plain language to describe their new assessment model.
Parents receive reports called ‘progress maps’ 3 times a year in the autumn, spring and summer terms. The system uses emoji faces to summarise each student’s attainment and progress in core subjects. The progress maps also include individual targets for each
subject and tips on how parents can support their children’s education outside of school.
Describing their approach, a year 4 teacher explained ‘Our reporting starts off on the basis of ‘is your child at, above or below expected’. Parents understand this clearly. If the children are below, we still frame it in a positive way and explain [that] ‘your child is below
the expected at the moment, so we’re doing this, this and this to help your child’.’
Parents are also invited into school for face-to-face progress meetings so that teachers can explain anything parents do not understand in the progress reports. In order to encourage parents to attend, the school offers whole-day informal ‘drop-ins’ to provide
increased flexibility. Staff report that these sessions have increased parental engagement – attendance at the ‘drop-ins’ has been good, with an average of 20 parents attending from a class of 30 pupils.

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SEND implications? p27

Only a minority of interviewees felt that their school’s assessment approach worked well for pupils with SEN. Others said that their school’s approach did not adequately recognise the small steps of progress made by pupils with SEN. This concern was typically, but not exclusively, mentioned by interviewees from primary
schools.

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The workload issue? p27

Most interviewees reported that teachers were now spending a similar amount of time on assessment as before. A few reported a continuing increase in workload due to the requirements of their school’s new approach.

EDUCATING FOR THE MODERN WORLD: CBI and PEARSON EDUCATION AND SKILLS ANNUAL REPORT NOVEMBER 2018

We often hear what business wants from schools and there is no shortage of horror stories about school leavers who can hardly read, write or do the most basic arithmetic.

This report puts some evidence forward. Paragraphs like this:

“The majority of businesses reported that they are satisfied with the academic results and/ or qualifications of young people who have applied for jobs during the past 12 months, with fewer than one in ten (9%) reporting dissatisfaction.”

Here are some selected quotes, directly taken from the document. As usual, we suggest you look at sections that apply to/ interest you most.

 

• Standards of literacy and numeracy are a cause for concern, with one in four employers (25%) not satisfied, while around two in five businesses are not satisfied with the aptitude and readiness for work of young applicants (44%) and/or broader skills such as communicating and problem-solving (38%)

 

• In the primary school phase of education, up to age 11, the majority of businesses want to see schools developing pupils’ STEM skills (82% rank this among the top three most important areas for action), together with digital and IT skills and broader skills such as teamwork, creativity and listening (72% and 70% respectively)

 

• To achieve the government’s ambition for a ‘Global Britain’, we have to get language teaching in our schools right, with the major European languages of French (54%), German (51%) and Spanish (50%) most commonly in demand among businesses.

The authors are keen to promote the improvement of IT skills.

More evidence to support some kind of coverage of languages, teamwork, creativity, listening, communicating and problem solving.

Report Card 2018 published these concerns.

There are large gaps between the most advantaged and least advantaged students and some gaps are getting wider. Gaps that are small at primary school grow through to GCSE and university admission, leaving poorer students playing catch up for the rest of their lives.

• less than half as likely to achieve passes in GCSE English and maths than their peers
• a whole year behind their peers
• just over eight months behind their peers in reading, writing, and maths by age 11
• students on free school meals four times as likely to be excluded than their peers
• After GCSEs, disadvantaged children are six times more likely to be recorded as not going into a job or any other training/ education

Here’s what they suggest:

• The best ‘World-class teachers and leaders’ should be employed  in the most disadvantaged areas
• A system that  is interested in developing the whole child, promoting emotional and social competencies alongside academic attainment
• Joined up support for all post-16 destinations, giving every student a choice about their future

Here are some copied and pasted extracts from the report:

“In the short time that NewsWise has been in existence, a small team of Programme and Project Managers have created an exciting suite of resources to support children’s news literacy. These include a practical workshop and resources for children of upper primary
age, a teacher training session and 16 lesson plans and resources (the ‘unit of work’). The NewsWise programme launched digitally in June 2018, with an editorial in The Guardian, a Twitter account @GetNewsWise and website: https://www.theguardian.com/newswise.”

“547 pupils in schools across England and Wales have now benefitted from taking part in a NewsWise workshop, learning about news literacy while preparing their own news reports.
As this report shows, along with having fun (the most common word children used to describe their experience of NewsWise), children developed a deeper understanding of why and how news stories are created, and became much more confident about reading,
talking about and sharing news. 76 teachers received face-to-face training from an expert member of the NewsWise team, helping schools to support news literacy across the curriculum and ensuring a more sustainable impact. 10 out of 10 said they would recommend NewsWise training to other schools, with 9 in 10 rating it ‘excellent’.”

We never endorse or otherwise here, but it does look like something worth having a look at.

Page 6 of the report outlines the model and makes note of

• Time
• Training
• Resources
• Experience

There is a clear recognition of teacher workload and how this is addressed.

There are some interesting discoveries

• 2% were able to identify fake and real news stories presented as part of a quiz correctly.
• a gap in performance of almost 10 percentage points between girls and boys (with girls performing better)
• those not eligible for free school meals performed better than their peers who were eligible.

This could well be something for teachers who want to do something different.

 

The area of high-stake testing and its effect on curriculum breadth raises a lot of discussion. This NFER review goes some way in helping the debate by putting forward some research findings.

This is always useful, because, as usual, a lot of teachers will argue a case based on their experience at best, or a gut-feeling that becomes interpreted as fact.

The authors point out that:  “A number of themes emerged from the literature, although the limited nature of the evidence base means that findings must be interpreted with extreme caution.”

Here are some extracts taken directly from the report:

“In this review, we define accountability broadly as a government’s mechanism for holding educational institutions to account for the delivery of high quality education. The idea that the practice of accountability can contribute directly to improvements in education is a powerful one that underpins policy. Paradoxically, though, some hold that accountability systems can also produce negative impacts on education, making it more difficult for schools to deliver the sought after quality.”

“We mapped the main features of accountability systems for primary education in 13 international jurisdictions…  England, Wales, Australia (New South Wales), Canada (Alberta), Estonia, Finland, Germany, Poland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, USA (Massachusetts) and Sweden.”

Summaries:

England and Wales operate a statutory national assessment programme in the primary phase of education. The assessments are used to hold schools accountable for pupil attainment and progress, although in different ways. In both , statutory external evaluation is carried out; this involves school inspection.
There is a requirement for school self-evaluation.

In Australia, there is statutory national assessment in the primary phase used to hold schools to account.

In Japan, there is statutory national assessment at the end of the primary phase. They are not used to hold schools accountable for pupils’ attainment and progress.

It operates a system of statutory external evaluation which includes school inspection.

New Zealand operates a national monitoring assessment in the primary phase(NMSSA) . It isn’t used to hold schools to account. It is based on nationally representative samples and does not test the cohort of pupils as a whole, but gives an over-all picture of pupil performance.

Singapore operates a self-assessment model (the School Excellence Model, or SEM). Schools self-evaluate and also undergo external validation. There is statutory national assessment of pupils at the end of the primary phase to determine pupils’ secondary school pathways.

In general it appears that high-stake testing has an unintended impact of narrowing the curriculum.

“The introduction of high-stakes testing in Australia is regarded, by some, as the harbinger of undesirable practices described as ‘gaming the system’, leading away from the provision of a broad curriculum.” p 12

“In 2010, New Zealand saw the introduction of national standards in schools. Following an expert consultation, it was reported that
there were concerns that ‘the introduction of Standards increases the risk of a narrower focus on numeracy and literacy in primary schools’. From 2018 onwards, these National Standards will be removed again, to be replaced with the National Monitoring of Student Achievement.” p 12-13

It is worth looking at the section: The increasing achievement gap as consequence of high-stakes accountability on p 18

 

In ‘School Cultures and Practices:  supporting the attainment of disadvantaged pupils’ the DfE looked at schools that have achieved high standards whilst working with deprived children.

The report points out that the challenge of teacher recruitment and retention needs to be addressed in poorer areas outside of London.

The strength of this work is that it gives very clear examples of effective practice with quotes from the teachers involved.

There are several references to training being needed in how to use data in order to focus the support that these children need. There is clear emphasis on early action here, with both NQTs and RQTs being given this training. It also states that this type of training should be included in ITT programmes.

This ‘data literacy’ level needs to be extended to governors as well so that they can hold the school to account.

Away from the the data aspect, it states that the most successful schools have teachers

• who believe in their school’s ethos
• are confident that their work can make a difference.

It is not surprising to see: “High-performing primary schools emphasised their investment in the EYFS.” (p 86)

There is also a recommendation that they look into the impact of shared purpose on performance.

Strong visionary leadership is noted as is parental involvement

Effective deployment of support staff is worth looking at (p73).

The leadership aspect is reported well (p78) and has some interesting comments about heads and senior leaders who regularly teach. This appears to be far more evident in primary schools rather than secondary.

 

 

The paper by Reform ‘Beyond Gadgets’ makes claims such as

• how using video tutoring apps instead of one-to-one tutoring could allow 300,000 additional pupils to make ‘significant progress’ at school.
•  how using online tutors to support disadvantaged pupils at school could allow for an additional 30 million hours of tutoring, within the same budget.
• how technology can free up teacher time in disadvantaged schools to spend on more pupils in need.
• how schools could cut the working day by 25 minutes and cut the time teachers spend monitoring homework by 95 per
  cent.
• research shows that artificial intelligence systems can produce better learning outcomes than comparative human methods.

These are bold claims and they come with many suggestions about what needs to be in place in order for this to happen. For example:

“Schools should provide Continuing Professional Development (CPD) as they are implementing EdTech. This should include sharing successful as well as failed EdTech approaches in the classroom.” p6

“The Department for Education should identify and engage with ‘Tech Expert’ schools to celebrate their achievements and link them up with schools that are struggling to make effective use of
EdTech to support disadvantaged pupils. It should look to recruit several private-sector providers to help fund these networks.” p6

This is just a starting point for a potentially robust debate.

The Nuffield Foundation’s report How do shortages of maths teachers affect within school allocation of maths teachers to pupils?
states that shortages lead to disadvantaged secondary pupils
having less access to experienced and well-qualified teachers.

Along with this:

• inexperienced teachers or those who do not have a degree in maths, are more likely to teach Year 7 to Year 9 pupils than older year groups
• 19% of KS 3 maths teachers are inexperienced. This early exposure to inexperienced maths teachers risks
  switching pupils off maths at an age when they are forming attitudes to subjects and future choices.

They found that where maths teacher shortages occur, schools have hardly any job applications for vacant posts. Add to this that many  applicants are not suitable and you can see why they frequently have to readvertise. This can lead to schools  making  appointments that are “less than ideal.”

 

It is suggested that well qualified maths graduates go for better paid jobs in the private sector when the economy is doing comparatively well.

This is a very important issue.

For some time it’s been recognised that parents who support their children’s learning have a significant impact on pupils’ achievement. Their involvement can have more influence over a child’s education than their school.

The report from Estyn comes up with these main points:

• Many schools adopt an increasingly comprehensive range of strategies to communicate with parents. Only a few schools actively consult with parents to identify their preferred method
• Secondary school children’s parents receive ‘considerably less’
  communication from their child’s school than parents at primary school
• A majority of schools use text messaging and social media platforms to give parents information about school events but a lot fewer have a two-way system set up
• Too often schools communicate with one parent only. This results in mothers getting the vast majority of communication from schools and this can inadvertently exclude fathers

And comments about parent consultation evenings:

• Generally, parents of primary school children find reports and parents’ evenings more useful than parents of secondary school children.
• Parents prefer it when teachers discuss their child’s
  specific strengths and areas for development.

Have a look at the whole report. You will find it very informative.

The National Literacy Trust has undertaken a substantial piece of research using data from 9,170 pupils aged 8 to 11 who responded to the Annual Literacy Survey : November 2017 and January 2018.

Comments in the report reflect:

• A year-on-year decline in how much pupils aged 8 to 11 enjoy writing and how often they write something that isn’t for school on a daily basis.
• A worrying trend because writing enjoyment and attainment are linked.
• 2016 : 23.2% of children and young people who enjoy writing wrote above the age expected level, but only 3.2% of those who don’t enjoy writing managed this.
• 1 pupil in 5 aged 8 to 11 say that they write something in their free time on a daily basis.

On the positive side, 68.5% of 8 to 11-year-old pupils say they enjoy writing in 2017/18 and 65.9% say it is fun.

 

The challenge is to help the ones who don’t enjoy writing. The report notes the following:

“The Free Writing Friday initiative by Cressida Cowell aims to remove these barriers in an attempt to boost pupils’ levels of writing enjoyment. The initiative gives pupils a set time every week where they have the freedom to write whatever they want, however they want, without fear of their work being seen, marked or corrected by their teachers, parents or carers. It is hoped that the initiative will create new opportunities for all children to explore their thoughts and ideas through writing, regardless of their attitudes towards writing.”

It would be good to see if your school is aware of this and what plans/ strategies they have to help more children enjoy writing.