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Latest Blog Posts
- What curriculum do young people need? July 23, 2020
- School reopening? top scientists say not yet May 25, 2020
- Sending England back to work and back to school? May 11, 2020
- Too early to reopen schools : look at Europe April 30, 2020
- Ofsted : unreliable, destructive, beyond repair December 5, 2019
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Tag Archives: accountability pressures
Ofsted : unreliable, destructive, beyond repair
Ofsted is clearly beyond repair, and the Election provides an opportunity to close it for good. This will help to stop the mass exodus of teachers from England’s schools. It will help schools concentrate on what really matters: children’s education … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability
Tagged accountability pressures, disadvantage, inspection, Ofsted
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Life after SATs – a world to win
It is hardly surprising that the prospect of ending SATs has worried some parents and teachers. After all, younger teachers, and most parents, have always lived under their shadow. SATs are part of the landscape. It’s hard to imagine what … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Uncategorized
Tagged accountability pressures, assessment alternatives, testing
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Are SATs closing the poverty gap?
Based on an elaborate formula invented by his officials, schools minister Nick Gibb is “proud we’re closing the gap between rich and poor pupils.” A more straightforward measure shows that nothing has changed. Last summer 54% of children eligible for free … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Social Justice
Tagged accountability pressures, disadvantage, National Curriculum, poverty
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Primary school tests and children’s mental health
One study after another has shown the damage being caused by SATs to children’s mental health. In a survey by the ATL (now part of the National Education Union) in 2016, 89% thought that testing and exams were the biggest cause … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Uncategorized
Tagged accountability pressures, Ofsted, politicians, testing
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Stop these tests, protect the children
Following Michael Gove’s revision of the National Curriculum, the Government deliberately set out to make tests harder. The result was predictable. In their first year, the new KS2 SATs failed half of England’s children in at least one subject (Reading, … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability
Tagged accountability pressures, assessment alternatives, testing
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Demoralisation and failure: what are we doing to children?
In the open letter which a hundred education professors and lecturers wrote to Michael Gove in 2013, and which hit the front pages of national newspapers, the government was clearly warned about what the new curriculum would do. The lists … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Uncategorized
Tagged accountability pressures, disadvantage, National Curriculum, testing
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How teaching can be different
by Valerie Coultas Cultures of performativity must go if collaboration and creativity is to survive in teaching This article takes issue with the dominant managerial view that teaching is improved by close supervision and imposed lesson observations. Instead, I argue … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Teachers
Tagged accountability pressures, competition, lesson observation, professionalism
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Progress 8 – a biased and misleading measure
Progress 8 was supposed to be a fair measure of secondary school ‘effectiveness’. New research confirms that it is seriously biased against schools with more disadvantaged pupils. It is vital to expose this injustice because scoring ‘well below average’ on Progress … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Uncategorized
Tagged accountability pressures, disadvantage, poverty
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Test scores and poverty 2: parents’ education
The mountains of data which overwhelm schools are next to useless, because the categories they use don’t measure up to reality. A major reason is that the categories ‘Free School Meals’ and ‘disadvantaged’ don’t reflect the serious burden of poverty … Continue reading
Posted in Social Justice, Uncategorized
Tagged accountability pressures, poverty, testing
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Test scores and poverty – it doesn’t add up
England’s schools are drowning in data. Everybody is obsessed with accountability statistics, from Ofsted down to the school cat. This obsession with data distorts the way we look at pupils and their education. 300 spreadsheet columns running from A to … Continue reading
Posted in Social Justice, Uncategorized
Tagged accountability pressures, disadvantage, poverty, testing
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Reclaiming Schools 