School Data Updates

As increasing numbers of schools question the effectiveness of their incumbent systems and begin to look at alternatives that may better meet the needs of their curriculum and approach to assessment, it’s worth bearing in mind a few golden rules. Hopefully these will provide a suitable fit-for-purpose test and save schools from repeating the mistakes […]

I love this time of year. Spring arrives in a riot of colour and we emerge from our winter torpor, stumbling out of darkness into light. From January onwards we look for signs of spring’s arrival, assessing its progress via a series of milestones: bulbs flowering, birds nesting, that first evening drink in the garden. […]

For the past 3 years, the DfE have compared schools’ percentages making 2 levels of progress (so-called expected progress) in reading, writing and maths against a floor standard. If the school had fewer than 65% achieving L4+RWM but was equal to or above just one of these floor standards then they were officially deemed to […]

Last summer, when the news trickled out that the floor standard would be kept at 65%, rather than being hiked up to to a mountainous 85% as originally proposed, the sense of relief was palpable. We already knew that the expected standard was going to be tougher to achieve than a level 4, and to […]

Last week the DfE published its document on Primary School Accountability in 2016, a technical guide to the new key performance measures that will form the basis of the performance tables and Ofsted data this year. With this key document finally out in the public domain, it seemed like an ideal time to summarise the […]

A few months back someone posted a screenshot from an Ofsted report on Twitter. The paragraph in question stated that ‘according to the school’s own tracking data, most pupils are not making expected progress’, Ouch! The school appeared to have shot itself in the foot with its own system.  It’s tempting to write this off […]

The pace of change over the past 2 years has been extraordinary, bewildering and probably unprecedented. Reforms to assessment and accountability have come so thick and fast that I have got into the habit of checking the DfE and Ofsted websites and twitter feeds for updates just before I do a talk; and I’ve included last minute, ‘hot off […]

This is something I used to do for the LA and often end up doing for HTs when they ask me “what are Ofsted up to? Will we be next?”. Obviously we don’t really know who will ‘be next’ but this method has proved to be fairly accurate so I thought it was worth sharing […]

Last month the schools causing concernguidance was updated. This guidance sets out local authorities’ statutory responsibilities for tackling underperformance, and includes details on the issuing of warning notices and their powers of intervention. My fear is that it’s more about stick than carrot and effectively turns LAs into boot boys, going out to round up as many schools as possible […]

Remember the community charge, or the poll tax as it became better known? The supposed merit of the system was that it was simple, easy to understand and straightforward to apply. But like many things that are simple it was flawed. It was also extremely unfair. Under the poll tax, everyone would pay the same […]