Ahead of his keynote speech at this year’s NACE National Conference, NACE patron Dr Chris Yapp offers an aspirational yet realistic vision of how artificial intelligence (AI) could help solve current challenges in education.

It is easy to be overwhelmed with both the scope and pace of change in the modern world. Faced with educating children for a world that does not yet exist, for jobs that we don’t yet understand, it is easy to close one’s ears, put heads down and hope it will all go away. Be it as a government minister, as parents, school leaders, teachers or governors, the lack of clarity on the world we are preparing children and young adults for can cause us to become risk-averse and confine our efforts to the areas we feel most confident about.

My experience over a lifetime working in the public, private and third sectors is that this is a mistake. I have seen sectors and companies fail because they clung to a world view that was past its sell-by date.

Adapting to a fast-changing world

When I first became engaged with educational reform nearly 30 years ago, it was common to hear the argument that teaching was inherently a conservative profession and resistant to change.

On the contrary, in my work I have found health professionals, lawyers, accountants, various built environment professions to face the same challenges in shifting professional practice to adapt to a changing world. In all sectors, including education, there are people who thrive on change and others who prefer a comfortable silo.

I have often argued that it is our attitude to change that needs to be rethought, not change itself.

My experience is that in general people do not resist change, they resist being changed. If people feel that change is being thrust on them without their acceptance, engagement and understanding, they will resist. Yet if they feel engaged in and responsible for delivering change, the same changes can feel far less stressful, indeed liberating.

During my time at school and university, the best teachers embraced change and encouraged that in me. The teachers I meet who I find inspiring are constant innovators.

That said, I would argue that society and the economy are facing levels of change over the next few decades – from climate change, technological change and societal and demographic challenges – that require systemic responses that cannot be delivered by individual teachers, educational institutions, advisers and consultants simply “doing their best”.

An aspirational but realistic approach to AI

In this post, I want to illustrate just one strand, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Each week I see yet another claim around AI developments in health, education, law, autonomous vehicles and so on. There is a lot of hype around, as ever, but the potential is real, and the possibilities will grow over next few decades.

So, instead of throwing AI tools and techniques at teachers, schools and colleges and hoping something will stick, can we enable students and teachers to become masters, not victims, of AI-enabled change?

I’d like to commend a recent report from Nesta on AI in education which is grounded in the real world yet is aspirational about a more effective, human system of education.

Let’s start by hitting the hype on the head. AI will not replace teachers. While progress in a variety of technologies under the banner of AI is genuinely impressive, we are a long way from the full AI vision. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a long-term goal for many in AI research and industry. AGI is about building systems and machines that have a broad range of capabilities that match the breadth of human skillsets.

What we can do now and for the foreseeable future is use AI on specific tasks. The narrower the task, the easier it is to build an AI system that can match a human at that task. We can build AI systems that beat champions at Go, but also outperform doctors in diagnostics.

What existing challenges can AI be used to address?

So, let’s put AI in its proper place, starting with the problems and challenges currently faced by schools:

1. What are the biggest impediments to improving learning at individual, class, institution and national levels?
2. How can we free up teachers’ time to enable them to develop the skills to become masters of change?
3. What tasks can AI perform to support education at all levels from individual to the UK and beyond?

Too often, we have tried to answer the third question without being clear on the first two. Of course, more funding would always help, but it is not a panacea if it acts as a sticking plaster to old ways.

This leads to the next important step…

4. How can education stakeholders engage with developments in AI to shape the capability to address the real challenges and opportunities that AI presents?

Practical and ethical implications

Let me illustrate this with two examples.

The first is in assessment. Imagine you have two pupils who are “B” standard at the end of the year. Based on your experience, Pupil 1 is strong in X and weak in Y, and Pupil 2 the reverse. Understanding next year’s curriculum, you might believe that Pupil 1 might get an A but 2 might move towards a C.

That insight would be very helpful to next year’s teacher but your workload to give far more detailed assessments on each pupil would be unacceptable.

This is precisely the type of task AI is well suited to. Reform of assessment is a perennial bugbear in my experience. We have the technology now to do what many have aspired to for decades, which is to build a more learning-focused, rich assessment framework that supports teachers and learners without adding to the burden and stress on teachers. That is easier to say than do, of course. If we follow the model of building technology and imposing it on schools the potential will be missed, and we will all feel the loss.

The second example is around the ethical implications of developments in AI. We already have examples of AI developments where the systems can be shown to discriminate on gender, race and other grounds. This has profound importance for curriculum developments in teaching AI within schools, but also for the ethical frameworks within which teachers and schools operate. AI, like all technologies, does not exist in a vacuum.

Indeed, I would argue that climate change is an ethical issue as much as it is a scientific discourse. I’ll leave this as an open question here: “Is a grounding in ethics part of the 21st century core curriculum?”

Throughout my years engaged with education at all levels, there has been an aspiration for education to become more evidence-based and research-led. I think we will only deliver on that goal if education professionals are developed and recognised as masters of change. Only then can we thrive on change rather than implement stress-reducing coping strategies. If we are to prepare this generation of young people for the world to come, we owe it to them and ourselves to work together and build an ambitious vision of the teaching workforce.

Following the recently published report Access to Advantage, NACE Education Adviser Hilary Lowe shares additional recommendations for schools seeking to ensure more able learners of all backgrounds, socioeconomic contexts and in all parts of the UK have access to the most competitive higher education pathways.

The recently published Sutton Trust report Access to Advantage returns to the issues raised in the 2011 report Degrees of Success, which looked at university acceptance rates and how they differ by school type and area, finding state school pupils were considerably less likely to go to top universities than those at independent or grammar schools.

This new report uses UCAS data to analyse university acceptance rates for the 2015-17 cohorts by school type and region, with findings showing little changed since the 2011 study. In the UK, whether an individual attends university, and the institution at which they study, remains highly influenced by socioeconomic background, school attended, and the part of the country they are from.

Access to Advantage puts forward recommendations for schools and universities to help close the gap in higher education participation rates.

For schools:

 

• All pupils should receive a guaranteed level of careers advice from professional impartial advisers. For those facing disadvantage – or who are at risk of failing to reach their potential – there should be further support available, including being supported to undertake and reflect upon academic enrichment activities for the personal statement. The ‘Careers Leaders’ in schools, established by the government’s Careers Strategy, should ensure that key messages are consistent across staff and based on up to date guidelines.

• Advice should happen earlier, and include guidance on subject options at A level. Many young people are not getting the right advice when it comes to A level options. Students need more support at an earlier age, that can help them to make an informed choice on their A-level choices. This should include advice on ‘facilitating subjects’, favoured by Russell Group universities.
  

For universities:

• Universities should make greater use of contextual data in their admissions process, to open-up access to students from less privileged backgrounds. 
• There should be greater transparency from universities when communicating how contextual data is used, including the use of automated ‘contextual data checkers’.
• A geographic element should be included in future university access agreements, including a focus on peripheral areas. 
• Universities should work to reassure students and families who may be reluctant to move substantial distances to university. 

What more can schools do?

NACE endorses the report recommendations – many of which it already supports in practical ways through its professional development programmes and publications, such as the newly published NACE Essentials guide on careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) for more able learners (log in to our members’ site for access to the full Essentials range).

However, much needs to be in place – in and outside school – at the earliest stages of schooling to give all learners the best chances of reaching the destinations of which they are capable. Our recommendations for schools include:

 

• Make full use of the body of evidence on what works to improve learner outcomes, including what works for the most able learners. Join the NACE community for regularly updated updates, guidance, publications, professional development programmes and the latest relevant research from the only UK organisation with a specialist focus on more able learners.
• Ensure that subject choices and option and qualifications pathways allow optimal choices for learners. The new Ofsted framework will support schools in evaluating the “curriculum of opportunity” and this will be a focus for NACE in the coming months and at our national conference in June.
• Focus on aspiration raising and the development of social capital and wider learning experiences. NACE courses, resources and Challenge Award-accredited schools provide many examples of how this is being achieved and can be successfully achieved in all schools.
• Continue efforts to increase teacher supply/access in academic subjects where there are currently shortages and in the areas of the country most at risk.

Schools alone cannot alone solve the challenges of social inequality, but they do play a vital role in opening doors for all young people by providing high-quality learning experiences in and outside school, a challenging and broad curriculum, informed and inclusive advice and guidance, and inspiring role models and mentors.

For additional guidance and inspiration, log in to our members’ site for your free copy of the NACE Essentials guide to CEIAG for more able learners.

How effective is your use of school data? Ahead of her upcoming workshop “Using data to inform learning and secure high achievement”, NACE associate Dr Ann McCarthy shares guidance on the use of historic outcomes to target improvement in outcomes for all learners, including the more able.

This area is led by headteachers and senior leadership teams who set strategy, policy, school improvement plans and quality assurance arrangements. Senior leaders also develop middle leaders so they too can contribute to school priorities, extending the vision and policy into their areas of responsibility.

Based on effective school review and self-evaluation, school leaders highlight areas for development and improvement. They set targets which include the quality and range of school provision, progress and achievement of more and exceptionally able learners. They introduce new initiatives and practices with measurable outcomes, and promote action research to enable them to explore and implement the most effective strategies and practice.

It is important to set quantitative targets so the impact of actions can be measured objectively. This information can then be supplemented by qualitative measures of performance. Learners’ attainment and achievement targets are used to ensure all, including the most able, make appropriate progress across year groups and over time.

Six steps to implement in your school

1. Put in place an action plan in response to self-evaluation and research evidence, which includes performance measures.
2. Set whole-school end of key stage targets, using national benchmarks, which can be measured.
3. Use the same or higher targets for interim school years.
4. Set quantitative performance data targets, with attention to closing gaps in achievement between different year groups and subjects.
5. Include targets for defined groups of learners including: gender; ethnicity; EAL; SEND and disadvantage.
6. Identify other schools where performance is better in target areas and seek to work in collaboration or acquire support, dependent on needs.

In general, leaders would expect to see a small variation in the performance profile between year groups. This allows leaders to target marginal improvement year on year using existing data. However, where there is a significant variation in the prior performance of any given year group, these targets should be adjusted to reflect the differences.

Reviewing outcomes for more able learners

The following questions, regarding more able learners, should be considered:

• Are historic attainment outcomes in line with or better than average for similar schools or family of schools? 
• What actions will lead to higher attainment and what quality assurance milestones can be put in place?
• Do more able learners make the same or better progress than other learners, relative to their starting points, and is this true regardless of learner groups?
• Have targets been put in place for all year groups and for all subjects?
• Are there any subjects or year groups where progress and attainment measures lie below whole-school targets and what specific action is in place to monitor and measure improvement?
• Have the targets been communicated effectively to middle leaders and have they acted to make changes which will lead to further improvements?
• When reflecting on the school’s position in relation to more able learners, there is a balance between where the school has been historically and what might be achieved if all barriers were removed.

This article is an excerpt from the NACE Essentials guide "Using data to improve provision for more able learners". To access this guide and the full NACE Essentials range, log in as a member.

NACE Education Adviser Hilary Lowe explains the thinking behind this new resource, and suggests a range of approaches for its implementation...

The NACE Challenge Framework is designed to help schools review and plan for improvements in challenge for more able and other learners across all areas of the curriculum and school experience. To facilitate this, the latest round of updates to the Framework and supporting resources includes a new departmental and curriculum review template – available via the Challenge Hub area of our website for all schools working with the NACE Challenge Development Programme.

This new resource should help those leading on a school’s use of the Challenge Framework to engage middle leaders in the review and planning cycle. It provides key aspects from the Challenge Framework self-evaluation template, with which to interrogate provision and practice for more able learners in specific curriculum areas and plan for further developments.

The curriculum review tool will also enable middle leaders, in collaboration the school’s NACE Challenge lead, to gather and synthesise evidence of high-quality provision on a very secure footing – building a strong portfolio for submission if/when the school chooses to apply for NACE Challenge Award accreditation.

The Challenge Framework is already accompanied by detailed guidance to support the coordination of the self-evaluation process. In addition, when making use of the new departmental review template, schools could consider the following approaches:

• Choose a selection of departments/curriculum areas as “early adopters” of the review tool. These teams then present their findings to other departments, who go on to undertake their own reviews. Joint planning of next steps could take place at relevant meetings of department/curriculum leaders.
• The Challenge Framework lead works with a few/all departments to support review and development.
• A head of department/curriculum area asks a colleague to take responsibility for the review; the completed review is then used to inform planning, in the light of whole-school priorities.
• Departments/curriculum areas undertake peer reviews or triad reviews of provision for more able learners.
• All departments/areas focus on reviewing provision and practice in a specific strand of the Challenge Framework identified by senior leaders.
• The Framework is integrated within existing school self-evaluation and development systems and cycles.

Whatever the processes used, the gathering of evidence for planning, evidence of impact and for Challenge Award accreditation should rely on information gathered from all areas of the school, for each of the six key categories (“elements”) of the framework.

Evidence from individual curriculum areas is crucial and the curriculum review template will become an invaluable tool for schools using the Challenge Framework and working towards the Challenge Award.

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If your school is already working with the Challenge Framework, log in to access all current NACE Challenge resources.

Not yet working with the Challenge Framework? Find out how the NACE Challenge Development Programme could support your school.

The wheels of education research and policy continue to turn even when school’s out… To help you catch up and prepare for the new academic year, NACE Education Adviser Hilary Lowe summarises key takeaways from this summer’s education report releases.

School cultures and practices: supporting the attainment of disadvantaged pupils

Department for Education, May 2018

This qualitative research study compares cultures and practices in schools that perform well and less well for disadvantaged pupils, in and outside of London. It provides insights into practices that could be encouraged to improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.

Five key cross-cutting findings are identified:

1. School cultures and practices vary more by a school’s performance than by location.
2. Lower-performing primary schools outside London are most different from other schools.
3. High-performing schools, regardless of location, adopt a wide range of approaches to supporting disadvantaged pupils.
4. High-performing schools, regardless of location, are positive and solutions-focused.
5. There is a subtle but discernible “London culture”.

The main characteristics of high-performing schools for disadvantaged pupils are identified as:

• Shared sense of purpose
• Use of data
• Engaging parents
• High-quality teaching
• Strong and visionary leadership

The report gives specific examples in these five areas and makes recommendations for further research.

In the coming academic year, NACE’s own research will include a focus on effective practice in Challenge Award-accredited schools which perform well for disadvantaged more able learners.

Use and perceptions of curriculum support resources in schools

Department for Education, July 2018

This report examines:

• The curriculum support resources being used most often by schools and teachers
• How teachers judge the quality of curriculum support resources
• Gaps and priorities for the development of future curriculum support resources

Some common trends are identified from interviews with schools:

• The development of formal whole-school curriculum plans/schemes of work is more common in secondary schools. In primary schools planning relates more to broad themes to be followed according to year group/key stage.
• Individual lesson planning is undertaken by teachers at both primary and secondary level to structure day-to-day delivery and tailor content to the needs of particular classes.
• The importance of collaborative working and shared resources is emphasised by teachers and senior leaders in both primary and secondary schools.
• Social media is growing in popularity as a means of accessing resources and gathering peer feedback. This is particularly the case among early-career teachers who often use social media to share practice, ask for advice and provide tips on finding and developing resources.
• Resources need to be adaptable to meet the needs of a range of learners and abilities, across a range of areas, including challenge for high-ability learners and those with English as an additional language. It is important to be able to adapt resources to reflect individual teaching styles and learner needs, but also important that resources engage learners and motivate them to think independently.
• Apps and online software are mentioned as useful tools in maintaining learner engagement through a range of visual, audio and textual aids. Teachers are often able to adapt these resources to match the progress and targets of individual learners.
• Textbooks and hard-copy resources remain important for providing content, but digital resources are easy to access and often an engaging way for learners to develop skills and understanding. Textbooks are often used as a framework for lesson planning and as a reference tool for learners when conducting independent enquiry. Additional activities are used to supplement textbook content and add differentiation.
• Overall, it is generally accepted that a range of resources, formats and approaches should be used (rather than teachers depending on one type/format) to ensure curriculum delivery is high quality and works well for both staff and students. Although teachers can access existing resources easily, these are generally viewed as a starting point; they still need to be adapted to meet the needs of learners and to align with individual teaching styles.

 

Potential for success: fulfilling the promise of highly able students in secondary schools

Sutton Trust, August 2018

This report analyses how high-attaining students fare in secondary schools in England. It also explores approaches to maximising the potential of high-attaining young people through analysis of literature and case studies of good practice in schools that do particularly well for these students.

Important points highlighted include:

• Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to be in the top 10% for attainment in English and maths at the end of primary school. Disadvantaged students are three times less likely to be in this high-attainment group than their more advantaged peers: only 4% of disadvantaged students have high attainment at KS2, compared to 13% of non-disadvantaged pupils.
• Disadvantaged pupils who perform well in primary school are much more likely to fall behind at secondary school, compared to other high-attaining students, across a range of measures. While high attainers overall make about an average level of progress between KS2 and KS4, those from disadvantaged backgrounds fall substantially behind.
• They are also less likely to achieve the top grades: while 72% of non-disadvantaged high attainers achieve 5 A*-A grades or more at GCSE, only 52% of disadvantaged high attainers do. If high-attaining disadvantaged students performed as well as high-attaining students overall, an additional 1,000 disadvantaged students would achieve at least 5A*-A at GCSE each year.<
• High attainers from disadvantaged backgrounds who are white have the lowest level of attainment at GCSE compared to their peers in any other ethnic group. Only 45% of disadvantaged white students with high prior attainment gain 5A*-A at GCSE, compared to 63% of black students and 67% of Asian students from similar backgrounds.
• Students with high attainment do better at GCSE in schools with lower proportions of students on free school meals, schools in London, in converter academies, and in schools with higher numbers of other previously high-attaining students.
• Disadvantaged students make up a much smaller proportion in grammar schools, compared to comprehensives, with disadvantaged high attainers only half as likely as high attainers overall to enter a grammar. In grammar schools, only 1 in 17 of all high attainers are from disadvantaged backgrounds, compared to 1 in 8 high attainers in comprehensive schools.

Plus…

The government recently announced the creation of a national Centre of Excellence for modern languages, to be supported by leading schools in the field which will become language hubs. Of the nine schools named as language hubs so far, two have attained the NACE Challenge Award – The Broxbourne School in Hertfordshire and Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Buckinghamshire.

In July, the government also announced new online resources designed to help schools reduce teacher workload, freeing up time from “unnecessary and time-consuming tasks” so more time can be dedicated to teaching. The workload reduction toolkit is available here.

For more research and reports of relevance to schools working to improve provision for more able learners, click here.