Weekly Update 29/3/14

News:

DfE published the final proposals for a new primary accountability framework. Michael Tidd summarised the main changes and gave his take on them (spoiler: he's not impressed).

The NUT went on strike. Michael Tidd didn't think that was a good idea either. Nor did John Blake.

DfE also published plans for a new 16-19 accountability regime.

And plans to cut £200m from LAs and academies


Best Blogs/Articles:

Why literacy is knowledge by Robert Pondiscio

David Didau on the importance of school behaviour policies (it regularly amazes me how many schools still don't apply one consistently)

Deevybee on whether Dyslexia is an appropriate label

Cherryl KD on training teachers with a SEN specialism

Alex Quigley with some tips for new bloggers

A sample of Daisy Christodoulou's book in American Educator

Harry Webb on the future of education research

Michael Tidd (again) on seven questions you should ask about your post-levels assessment system

Shaun Allison on why some of his school's departments are so successful

Annie Murphy Paul on the importance of analogies


New Research:

Fascinating report from HEFCE on different in degree outcomes for different groups. The main focus has been on state school pupils doing better than private ones but there's a lot of interesting/worrying stuff in there.

Dan Willingham on a new study showing readability levels may well be inaccurate

Big new Gates Foundation funded report on Khan Academy - which still leaves us unsure as to whether it has any benefit.

Weekly Update 22/3/14

News:

Another week dominated by Ofsted. On Monday Policy Exchange published their eagerly awaited report with some radical recommendations. It was blogged about by David Didau, Tom Bennett, Joe Kirby, Stuart Lock, Robert Peal and me.

On Friday we heard Ofsted's response from Sir Michael Wilshaw. He promised a shift (over the next 18 months) towards shorter inspections for good schools and a review of the framework.

Which seems to fit with the conclusion to my blog on Policy Exchange's report: "Under the current regime I suspect we will see incremental shifts in the right direction but no big bang reset."

NAHT published a really interesting draft manifesto which I hope others engage with

Tristram Hunt is backing Future Leaders campaign to stop discrimination against women in headteacher appointments

On and the Varkey-GEMS Foundation announced a $1 million prize for the world's best teacher. Good luck everyone.


Best Blogs/Articles:

Harry Webb on the many weaknesses of the "nothing can be known about education" viewpoint

Tom Sherrington argues for a symbiosis between traditional and progressive pedagogy

Daisy Christodoulou has collated a variety of alternatives to NC levels

Chris Hall on the lessons from the first batch of EEF randomised control trials

Jo Facer on a wonderful sounding assembly in which she explained the importance of reading

Fascinating piece from Rob Webster on his research showing that getting a statement for a pupil with SEN can actually lead to worse outcomes.

Classroom routines from Elissa Miller who sounds like the most organised teacher in the world

The anonymous Heather F on her really bad teaching

Gifted Phoenix with more info on FSM admissions to Oxbridge than you'll ever need


New Research:

If you're a teacher and have a innovative idea you can win £15k to pay for a year long research pilot

Sunday Times on new research showing that state school pupils get better degrees those from private schools with the same qualifications (unfortunately paywalled + the full research is not yet published)

A new Sutton Trust report on parenting and attachment

My take on Policy Exchange's Ofsted report

First thoughts

This is one of the best think-tank reports I've read in a very long time. It's timely, pragmatic, while not being too safe. It's also well written (rarer than you might think).

And importantly it's the first report I've seen that makes real use of social media expertise. The authors acknowledge that they've built on the ideas emerging from twitter and the blogosphere and the final product is much stronger as a result:

"We would like to thank all the teachers and other educationalists who have continued to debate the role of Ofsted on blogs and on Twitter and in doing so, influenced our work - even if they didn’t know they were! Social media is a democratic phenomenon which offers a tremendous opportunity for closing the gap between practitioners and policymakers. If ideas are good and arguments are compelling, then it has never been as easy as now to shape what politicians and policymakers are thinking."

How I wish that social media had been in full flow when I was running the Policy Exchange education department back in 2008 - it would have significantly improved my thinking.

The full report is: here.


The key recommendations

The report sets our a new design for inspections with a shift to regular short inspections based primarily on data and self-evaluation. Only schools where inspectors had concerns (or couldn't tell) would get a longer "tailored inspection". This seems eminently sensible and is line with Ofsted's slow shift towards risk-based assessment over the past decade. 

There would be no teacher observations in these short inspections. Again I strongly agree. And set out my reasons why this would be an important shift here.

Longer tailored inspections would include teacher observations - but inspectors engaged in these visits would have to be trained to a high standard. This feels like a bit of a fudge. Obviously if we are going to have observations then inspectors must be trained but there's no reason given for why they are necessary.

The problem is that even with the best training available observations are not hugely reliable. The report acknowledges that the gold standard models of observation can achieve 61% agreement between 1st and 2nd observers (p.19). That still an awful lot of teachers getting the wrong grade for their teaching - with potentially significant knock on effects for their career. And to achieve that 61% could require up to six separate observations by different people (p.20) which is phenomenally time consuming and expensive.

Of course inspectors, as part of a longer visit, would want to spend time in classrooms but there would need to a really clear added value to formalising these observations to justify the cost both of resources and to individuals.

I remain of the view that the purpose of even a longer inspection should be to understand whether senior and middle leaders understand their school and not to make potentially invalid judgements about individuals' teaching. As I've said previously:

"Inspections should focus on systems. Essentially Ofsted should be looking at what the school is doing to ensure consistent good teaching. They should be inspecting the school's quality assurance not trying to do the quality assurance themselves. In their classroom visits they should be checking the leadership know their teachers and understand how best to support their future development. They should be checking that they have thought about professional development and about performance management. They should be seeing if the behaviour policy is being enforced; and if the school curriculum is actually being used."


Other recommendations

The full list of recommendations can be found in this blog by Joe Kirby. I agree with nearly all of them - particularly a new requirement that inspectors take a data interpretation test and the suggestion that Ofsted end the practice of having thousands of part-time, contracted, additional inspectors.

I have an issue with the suggestion that schools should only be considered outstanding if they "engage in a serious and meaningful way in some form of school to school improvement with other schools - as chosen by the school itself". This is laudable but very hard to inspect without visiting the other schools adding cost and complexity. It could also lead to quite a lot of fake collaboration. I'd rather have an additional category of "system leader" for those schools that were indisputably playing that role.

I also remain unconvinced that we need a separate system for inspecting academy chains. Ofsted are already doing inspections of multiple schools within a chain - which led directly to the recent reduction in the number of schools run by EACT. It's not clear what another framework would add.


Will any of it happen?

There's no question Ofsted have woken up - in recent months - to the extent of the public relations challenge they have. The social media engagement of their Director of Schools Mike Cladingbowl has been welcome and extremely encouraging. The reforms he has proposed in recent months fit with the direction of travel of the Policy Exchange report - shorter more risk-based assessments, emphasising that individual teachers shouldn't be graded - but they are much less radical.

Under the current regime I suspect this will continue - with incremental shifts in the right direction but no big bang reset. Whether we see the Policy Exchange recommendations implemented in full (or even the end of lesson observations all together) will probably depend on who gets to choose the next Chief Inspector and who that is.

  

Weekly update 15/3/14

News:

DfE published their school funding consultation for 2015-16 - next step towards a national funding formula

The FT ran a lengthy and very perceptive profile/interview with Michael Gove

Labour released a policy consultation on education. And Tristram Hunt wrote about Ofsted

The Mail launched an attack on the universal free school meals policy. As did ex-SPAD Dominic Cummings (and here). Special mention to Andy Jolley who's been tirelessly plugging away at the flaws with the policy

Post-16 institutions won some respite from funding cuts to 18 year old learners


Best Blogs/Articles:

David Didau takes a shot at Assessment for Learning

Sir David Carter on supporting transition from primary to secondary

ChocoTzar on the role of schools in supporting troubled teenage lives

Laura Mcinerney argues School Direct trainees shouldn't be placed in inadequate schools

John Dunford on using the pupil premium effectively

Toby Greany has a nuanced critique of the Government's self-improvement system narrative

Chris Chivers' overview of upcoming SEN changes

Joe Kirby on the benefits of using multiple-choice questions

Susan Young summarises a conference on the future role of Teaching Schools

John Mayer on why we need more tests, not fewer

Rob Coe on how to design assessments (technically from last week but so good I had to include it)


New Research:

DfE have released a series of papers listing research priorities and questions

Dan Willingham on a new study showing young children can understand complex concepts

Reform/SSAT report on how academies are (or are not) using their autonomy

University of Southampton say centralised academy chains are the most effective (can't find the full report)

Weekly Update 1/3/2014

Probably the most significant education story this week was the DfE "persuading" E-ACT, one of the largest academy chains, to find new sponsors for ten of their academies. Jonn Elledge's analysis is here and Robert Hill wrote an excellent blog about the wider significance of this move.

Meanwhile Liz Truss has been in Shanghai with a group of headteachers. Chris Husbands offered an excellent explanation of why they're flavour of the month at the moment.

And the long-awaited teacher workforce survey was published. David Weston picked out the most salient points. For me the most revealing chart was this one showing the difference of opinion between heads and classroom teachers in what would improve the quality of teaching and learning (respondents could choose up to three options).

Also this week two of my favourite blogs for a while. A superb post from Harry Fletcher-Wood on what it takes to make CPD effective and Rob Peal taking apart three Guardian articles (the middle one of which is a real shocker).


Other Highlights

David Didau on a surplus model of performance management

Kris Boulton asks "what is teaching?"

Kate Chhatwal on sexism in headteacher appointments

John Tomsett on the trouble with education research

Micon Metcalfe on the practicalities of getting rid of lesson grades

A nice bit of polemic from Valerie Strauss on why people who think they know what teacher do, don't

Dan Willingham on why you shouldn't hire like google and why fluid intelligence isn't trainable

Horatio Speaks on identifying and stopping the saboteur pupil

Harry Webb with a good summary of arguments for knowledge-based curricula

New Sutton Trust research on changes in admissions policy (and Conor Ryan's blog on the report)

Weekly Update 22/2/2014

A rare, quiet, half-term, week from the politicians. But this week's adventure was Five go to Ofsted with top bloggers Tom Bennett, Tom Sherrington, David Didau, Shena Lewington and Ross McGill invited to meet with Ofsted's schools director Mike Cladingbowl. Naturally there all blogged about it. (And Bill Lord wrote a good blog about the wider significant of the lack of primary presence at the meeting).

The big news was a bold statement from Mike Cladingbowl that inspectors shouldn't be grading individual lessons - and the meeting was followed up with new guidance from Ofsted on this issue. Quality of teaching - based on evidence beyond the lesson; such as pupils' books - can be graded, though. So there remains a dangerous lack of clarity that will, I expect, prevent many schools from dropping their own lesson grades (Alex Quigley would go further - and I agree). But it's a start and it's great to see Ofsted starting to engage with these issues - and with the blogging world.

Five go to Ofsted (thanks to @JamesTheo)

Other highlights

Joe Kirby on building a rigorous, content-led, curriculum.

Deputy John on the blight of constant interventions

Tessa Matthews on the forgotten children neither bad or good enough to get attention

Tom Loveless on the poor evidence base for professional development.

Robert Hill on the over-expansion of some academy chains and how to stop this happening in the future

And David Carter on chain accountability + expansion from the perspective of someone running an excellent one.

Michael Tidd with further thoughts on assessment after levels.

Rob Peal on teaching character (or rather why it can't be taught).

And Briar Lipson on why it can be taught.

David Weston on the consensus-driven Scottish education system

The North-East conundrum

Last year Ofsted released a report on disadvantage and education called "Unseen Children". There are all sorts of interesting charts and graphs in there but one set has been puzzling me on and off since the report was released.

They show the percentage of schools with the "most" and "least" deprived cohorts judged good or outstanding for leadership by region. The first chart (below) looks at primary schools and finds that for both the most and least deprived schools the North-East comes out on top, fractionally ahead of London and the North-West.

But then look at the equivalent graph for secondaries. Suddenly - in the "most deprived" category - schools in the North-East plummet to the bottom of the table. And it's not just a leadership issue - the same applies in the "teaching" category - where just 29% of deprived secondaries in the North-East are rated good or outstanding.

My first thought was that maybe there just aren't many secondaries included in this measure for the North-East, which is the smallest English region. Annoyingly the Ofsted report doesn't give any numbers but over 60 secondaries in the North-East are eligible for Teach First - which is a rough proxy - so it's a not insignificant number.

Then I looked at exam data, after all Ofsted inspections are pretty data driven these days. Unfortunately I can't look at the data for these particular schools as I don't know which ones Ofsted have included. However looking at results for pupils on free school meals shows a less exaggerated version of the same pattern. Primary results in the North-East last year were the second best in the country after London, alongside the North-West. This matches the Ofsted figures fairly well.

But a similar table for GCSE results shows the North-East slipping behind the West Mids/North-West and much closer to the other regions. This implies progress for these pupils during their secondary education is lower. And looking at the data for Teach First eligible schools suggests this is the case. In 2012, nationally, 65.7% of pupils in Teach First eligible schools made expected levels of progress in English and 64.3% in Maths. In the North-East the figures were just 60.9% and 59.1%. In Inner London they were 74.9% and 75.9%. Even in other poorly performing regions, like the South-East, pupils made a bit more progress than in the North-East.

So even if the Ofsted data is exaggerating the issue it is pointing to something real. Primary schools in the North-East serving deprived pupils are amongst the best in the country (outside of London) but the secondary schools serving those pupils are making less progress - on average - than elsewhere.

This is particular puzzle as most of the reasons given for regional differences - cultural or economic issues; immigration; supply of high-quality teachers - should apply to both sectors equally. And they seem to in other parts of the country (the West Midlands is an exception the other way - the secondaries seem to be doing better than the primaries).

If you're expecting an answer to the conundrum I'm afraid I don't have one. The only half-baked theory I can come up with is that the unusual labour market in the North-East (high dependency on the public sector for employment leading to higher teacher retention) might have different impacts on primary and secondary schools.

But I'd love to get better theories (or better analysis), especially from people who know the region much better than I do. It seems like an important question if we're to get to the bottom of how to help schools drive up standards outside of the capital.

*Update*

Thanks to everyone who responded to this blog. No one offered any obvious suggestions that I'd missed but there were a few theories that act as a nice set of hypotheses for future research. So here's a list of the four most popular theories:

That the issue is small 1 or 2 form entry primaries feeding into large secondaries with wide catchment areas. Some people noted that rural areas in other parts of the country also seem to have this issue.

That some LAs in the NE are three-tier.

That the economic situation and lack of jobs in the NE lead to a lack of aspiration or a belief that aspirations can't be fulfilled as young people progress through secondary.

A shortage of "system leader" type heads who can/will take on responsibility for supporting other schools.