-
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
Remove the figurehead… and change direction
The NUT has called for the resignation of Nicky Morgan as Secretary of State for Education. We expect that other organisations of teachers and parents will soon follow. Morgan’s position is now untenable. She was appointed to calm the storms … Continue reading
Phonics fanatics: politicians who think they know best
This post concludes our series on phonics by asking what has been gained by politicians imposing their will on teachers. It draws on research by Professor Dominic Wyse (UCL IoE) among others, as well as official data. The issue is … Continue reading
The phonics check: what does it prove?
drawing on research by Professor Margaret Clark The ‘phonics check’ is one of the most insane tests ever invented. It is not a real test of children’s reading, but designed to monitor whether teachers are teaching reading in the government-approved way. That is … Continue reading
The Rose Report on phonics: playing fast and loose with ‘the evidence’
Agitation about synthetic phonics and the Clackmannanshire experiment by Nick Gibb, then an opposition MP, had two outcomes: a systematic review of research (led by Carole Torgerson) and a committee of enquiry (chaired by Jim Rose). Torgerson’s research review came … Continue reading
The Scottish phonics miracle: myths and evidence
A major trigger for politicians insisting that synthetic phonics is the only good way to teach reading came from an experiment in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. The work of Sue Ellis at Strathclyde University reveals serious exaggeration by politicians and the press. Gains in … Continue reading
Deciding ‘ability’ and ‘potential’, or learning without limits
Alison Peacock is becoming very widely known, and rightly so, for her advocacy of learning without limits, and her challenge to core assumptions of the English education system with its constant sorting and ranking, ability tables and setting. The world … Continue reading
Curriculum and Assessment in English 3 to 19: A Better Plan
by John Richmond The National Curriculum for English then… In the late 1980s, when the idea of a National Curriculum was proposed, I welcomed the principle that all children and young people in state schools have a common entitlement to … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum
Tagged accountability pressures, assessment alternatives, English, GCSE, grammar, media, National Curriculum, spoken language
Leave a comment
An impossible curriculum: time to speak truth to power
When Michael Gove’s new curriculum for KS1 and 2 appeared, 100 education academics co-signed an open letter which exposed it as impossibly demanding. It was clear that its requirements were completely out of step with the age of the child, and … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum
Tagged accountability pressures, assessment alternatives, National Curriculum, PISA
1 Comment
Imagine a country where education ministers know truth from fiction
Nicky Morgan’s conference speech yesterday played clumsily on claims of low standards before the Conservatives took over in 2010. Her words: “I want you to imagine a country where 1 in 3 young people left primary school unable to read, … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability
Tagged accountability pressures, assessment alternatives, politicians
Leave a comment
Wales, an inspiring model for England
Report by Prof Richard Hatcher, Birmingham City University Imagine a country where education is based on trust in schools and teachers. Where the school curriculum is based on broad areas of learning and experience, not on discrete subjects, and a … Continue reading
Reclaiming Schools 