-
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
Follow us on Twitter
My TweetsTags
- academies
- accountability pressures
- apprenticeships
- assessment alternatives
- baseline tests
- British values
- buildings
- childhood
- Children's Zones
- class size
- College of Teaching
- community
- comprehensive schools
- coronavirus
- creativity
- culture
- Curriculum
- disadvantage
- early education
- Education Reform Act
- English
- extremism
- feedback
- formative assessment
- free schools
- GCSE
- governors
- grammar
- grammar schools
- history
- inclusion
- inspection
- IQ
- Islamophobia
- language
- literacy
- local authority
- local democracy
- mental health
- migration
- Muslims
- National Curriculum
- nurseries
- Ofsted
- phonics
- phonics check
- PISA
- politicians
- poverty
- Prevent
- privatisation
- profit
- racism
- school closures
- school finance
- secondary moderns
- self-evaluation
- Shanghai
- signatories
- South Korea
- special educational needs
- spoken language
- streaming and setting
- stress
- Sure Start
- talk
- teacher education
- terac
- testing
- trust
- universities
- Vocational education
- welfare
- workload
- youth unemployment
Categories
-
-
Tag Archives: assessment alternatives
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
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment
Without SATs the sky won’t fall in!
The National Education Union’s first conference in April voted to ballot on boycotting SATs. The next day, Jeremy Corbyn promised that a future Labour government would abolish them along with the proposed baseline test. This has caused excitement but also … Continue reading
Protecting children from primary school tests
The damage caused by primary school testing to children’s education and wellbeing is now very clear. Among other effects, it has helped to create a crisis in children’s mental health. As we know, large numbers of children are now suffering … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Curriculum, Uncategorized
Tagged assessment alternatives, politicians, testing
Leave a comment
Will anything but a boycott stop the tests?
The Reclaiming Schools network has played a significant role in exposing the damage caused by high-stakes testing, including our pamphlet ‘The Mismeasurement of Learning‘, widely circulated in the NUT and elsewhere, various series of blogposts carrying detailed analysis from specialist … Continue reading
Yorkshire conference – More Than A Score
Park Inn, North St, York YO1 6JF This conference will bring together parents and teachers across the region to discuss the crisis facing our schools and how this is affecting children and young people. It will provide an opportunity to … Continue reading
Little change promised on primary tests
The Government were clearly rattled by opposition to last year’s tests, including the parents’ protest last May and hundreds of responses to the Select Committee of MPs. Unfortunately, they are very slow to learn. After many delays, the new proposals amount to … Continue reading
Progress 8 – another attack on working-class schools
Progress 8 was supposed to be fair. It has become just another way of hammering schools with the most disadvantaged students. Its designers clearly took care to avoid some of the problems with counting 5 A*-Cs, which often led to a concentration … Continue reading
The mismeasurement of learning
Our new pamphlet The Mismeasurement of Learning focuses on primary assessment. It describes an assessment system which gives poor feedback on children’s learning and is damaging their well-being. The situation was brought to a point of crisis this year because of … Continue reading
Primary arts are in trouble
by Professor Pat Thomson, University of Nottingham The national curriculum guidelines affirm the value of cultural education for all children. The arts – including art and design, music, dance, drama and media arts, design and technology – are an integral … Continue reading
Reclaiming Schools 