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Collection of blog posts for and by school leaders, to support the development and maintenance of a whole-school culture of cognitively challenging learning for all. Includes examples of effective school improvement initiatives, guidance for those in a range of leadership roles, updates on the latest national policy and education research, and inspiring thought leadership pieces from across the NACE network.

 

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Who and what is assessment for?
Posted By Chris Yapp, 09 November 2020
Dr Chris Yapp, NACE patron
 
The pressure for reform/replacement of the current GCSE and A-Levels has been growing for months, and the activity of the Rethinking Assessment group has got off to an impressive start in bringing a broad range of parties to the task. However, anyone who has ever been involved in education reform at any level, from school to HE/FE, will share stories of past disappointments.
 
The use of technology in schools, in my opinion, was constrained unhelpfully by the exam system’s limited view of assessment.
 
I remember a US Midwest school where the children made documentaries on projects. They wrote, produced, presented and organised the material in a variety of topics, including history and science. The skills the students had developed, along with confidence, was a joy to see. I used this as an example at a teaching conference in England. When I asked “Why not in England?”, the exam system was always given as the blocker. Employers have for years complained that young people are leaving education not work-ready. Yet the children in the example above clearly had teamworking, communication and project skills acquired through academic learning.
 
To avoid this opportunity to rethink assessment stalling, despite clear momentum, I think that we need to step back from the immediate challenge and look at some deeper questions.
  • What is assessment for?
  • Who is assessment for?
Without aligning the proposed reforms to clear answers to these questions, my concern is that we make some piecemeal changes which fail to grasp the opportunity to deliver a step change in the quality of education for all our children and teachers alike.
 
The difficulty is that these are not easy questions to answer. Education as a whole is a large and complex ecosystem with many stakeholders.
 
The answer to who includes the student, parents, employers, HE and FE, and must not forget teaching staff. When a child moves from primary to secondary school, what information about that child goes with them? What information would help the teachers in the new school best prepare for the new intake? What is the current gap and is it being addressed?
 
The answer to what includes a record of a learner’s achievement, motivating the learner, and guiding them on strengths and weaknesses. It can also be used to focus teacher development.
 
These are only partial answers. I believe that we need a dialogue beyond schools to address these in the wider interests of schools and their staff, students and the wider society and economy.
 
Of course we need to “do” something for the students of 2021 to give them hope and confidence. However, I think that it is important to realise that the solution for next year is at best a stop gap. This is likely to take a decade to build consensus and deliver a robust solution for the longer term. Sustaining momentum will be a challenge for us all. Failure to sustain has been a problem in previous reform efforts.
 
I remember attending a number of think tanks in the 1990s discussing what a 21st century assessment system would look like. What I find interesting is that the growing consensus now looks very like those discussions then. Richer data, learner focused, a balance between formative and summative assessment models were all desired then.
 
It is too easy to be cynical and put our heads down and assume that nothing will change. The pandemic has seen schools battle to keep education going and innovating in real-time. There have been many success stories.
 
Will this time be different? I think so.
 
There is a quote from, of all people, Lenin that some up my optimism:
 
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
 
Overconfidence in the exam system has, for me, stymied previous educational initiatives. The weeks over the summer with the exam problems will be difficult to contain.
 
We do need pragmatic steps, but these need to be within a development of a broader vision that can guide policy, research, professional development and curriculum development.
 
Some of you will no doubt ask whether we need to ask questions at a different level too?
  • What is education for?
  • Who is education for?
That is for another day, but possibly sooner than we may think today.

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Tags:  aspirations  assessment  campaigns  feedback  leadership  transition 

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Rethinking assessment: join the debate
Posted By Sue Riley, 22 October 2020

Sue Riley, NACE CEO

Many of you will have seen the open letter to the Sunday Times from the recently formed Rethinking Assessment group. Born from issues raised this summer, Rethinking Assessment is a broad coalition of state and independent schools, universities, academics, employers and other stakeholders, which aims to value the strengths of every child. At its heart lies four fundamental principles:

  1. Many young people find the way our exam system works increasingly stressful and not a true reflection of what they are good at.
  2. Many employers complain that exams do not provide them with good enough clues as to who they are employing.
  3. Many headteachers feel that high-stakes exams distort priorities and stop them from providing a well-rounded education for their pupils.
  4. Many who are passionate about social mobility believe that any system that dooms a third to fail is a system with little sense of social justice.

We want to add our members’ voice and our research to this debate. There are immediate questions to be answered and longer-term opportunities to recalibrate the assessment system so that all learners have their full range of strengths recognised. As a membership organisation we can share and build on the decisions school leaders are taking now and over time provide perspectives that will inform longer-term changes.

Assessment is of course an integral part of learning and teaching. It facilitates daily ongoing review of individual progress and impacts on planning and target-setting. It supports personal learning targets. But we must not let the tail wag the dog. Not everything needs to be assessed, or indeed can be assessed, or needs to be independently assessed. We must consider too the timing of assessment – even more pressing as schools focus on tier 2 rota planning. 

Whilst a decision over summer exams has been made in principle, “fall-back” detail remains unclear and learners are picking up on this, increasingly questioning the reasoning behind assignments, and the part they will play in assessment. All of this detracts from the richness of a subject.  

The Early Career Framework and Teachers’ Standards have done much to support the teaching profession’s development in recent years. We must trust teachers with assessment, but teachers must be clear on what they are assessing and why.

What can we therefore now do in our schools to readdress this balance? One response lies in thinking about what we assess on a day-to-day basis in classrooms, how we build on low-stakes testing, and how we position effective challenge. How effectively do your teachers use retrieval practice for example? Deliberately recalling information forces us to pull knowledge “out” and examine what we know. The “struggle” or challenge to recall information improves memory and learning – by trying to recall information, we exercise or strengthen our memory, and we can also identify gaps in our learning. 

NACE has recently undertaken a literature review of retrieval practice – looking at the theoretical framework and considering emergent related classroom practices and practical amendments and applications for more able learners. To access this review, click here. 

Beyond the here and now of assessment, we need to return to the longer-term focus of the Rethinking Assessment coalition. Against the current backdrop, what could we do to improve the assessment system more broadly? How would we do it differently, allowing us to show non-traditional talents – making assessment more effective for employers, individuals and supporting the practising teacher? Fundamentally, how can we assess the child in front of us?

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Tags:  aspirations  assessment  campaigns  CEIAG  collaboration  leadership  lockdown  policy  school improvement 

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Fair Education Alliance Report Card 2016-17: key messages
Posted By Lewis Iwu, 06 September 2017
Updated: 08 April 2019

This month the Fair Education Alliance (FEA), a coalition of almost 90 organisations spanning business, education and the third sector, has published its third annual State of the Nation Report Card. In this blog post, FEA director Lewis Iwu outlines key priorities for UK government and schools, to ensure all young people are supported to fulfil their potential, regardless of their starting point in life.

Since the release of our last report card, the FEA has more than doubled in size, and we are proud to have welcomed organisations such as NACE that are doing great work to ensure that all children receive a world-class education.

As an alliance, we have set five ambitious Fair Education Impact Goals which, if achieved by 2022, would mean significant progress towards closing the gap between the most disadvantaged young people and their wealthier peers. These five goals are:

  • Narrow the gap in literacy and numeracy at primary school;
  • Narrow the gap in GCSE attainment at secondary school;
  • Ensure young people develop key strengths, including character, wellbeing and mental health, to support high aspirations;
  • Narrow the gap in the proportion of young people taking part in further education or employment-based training after finishing their GCSEs;
  • Narrow the gap in university graduation, including from the 25% most selective universities.

Accelerated progress needed to close the gap

The year’s report finds that since last year there has been marginal progress made towards closing the gap between disadvantaged young people and their wealthier counterparts. For example, the gap in literacy and numeracy at primary level has narrowed from 8.4 months to 8.2 months, while the GCSE achievement gap has decreased from 13.1 months to 12.8 months.

However, the gap in permanent and fixed period exclusions remains stubbornly wide, and the gap in university entry has increased for the first time since 2010. On the current trajectory, we will not achieve the five Fair Education Impact Goals by 2022.

Inequality in education is still deeply entrenched in our country and our Report Card is a stark reminder of the scale of the challenge. As the UK seeks to reposition itself in the world, it becomes more crucial than ever that our young people are able to fulfil their potential irrespective of their parental background.

Five priorities for schools and government

We know that educational inequality is a complex issue to tackle – too complex for one institution or organisation to solve alone. But we believe that by combining the passion, talent and ideas of educationalists, charities and businesses, we can offer a strong collective voice that creates a lasting impact on young people’s lives.

In response to the findings, the members of the FEA have worked together to identify five key priorities:

  • School funding: A commitment from the government that national spending should not decrease in real terms on a per pupil basis.
  • Destinations and careers: Every primary and secondary school in England should have a designated and trained senior leader responsible for developing and delivering a whole-school approach to destinations.
  • Avoiding an expansion in selective education: The government should continue to resist calls to expand selective education in the future.
  • Measurement of social and emotional competencies: A framework of measures should be available to all schools in the UK to support their knowledge of the social and emotional competencies of their students.
  • Early years: The government should commit to ensuring that every group setting serving the 30% most deprived areas in England is led by an early years teacher or equivalent by 2020.

We’re extremely proud that the Fair Education Alliance has provided the platform for such a diverse range of organisations to come together and collaborate on this joint report and the recommendations that stem from it. You can read the full report here.

Lewis Iwu is the director of the Fair Education Alliance, leading the coalition of 86 organisations. He was previously a campaigns adviser at corporate advisory firm Brunswick, where he specialised in education and social policy.

Tags:  access  campaigns  disadvantage  policy  research 

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