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Posted By Sandy Paley,
08 September 2021
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Sandy Paley, NACE Associate and Executive Headteacher of Toot Hill School, shares key lessons learned from the teacher assessed grades (TAG) experience of summer 2021.
The teacher assessed grades (TAG) experience initiated deep curriculum dialogue and work scrutiny in our school, which turned into a valuable learning experience for all. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it highlighted staff and students’ long-standing overreliance on specifications and mark schemes – often limiting the development of wider knowledge and understanding, and its confident flexible use in a range of situations, not just in specification-driven assessment tasks and examinations. The impact of such focused professional dialogue clearly showed that school leaders should seek to hold more explicit curriculum and pedagogical conversations with subject leaders, particularly focused on true cognitive challenge within a transformative curriculum, as a vehicle to ongoing teacher development.
Key lessons learned from the TAG experience:
- Greater empowerment and training of teachers to be confident owners and enactors of their curriculum, rather than implementors of a specification, is required. Left underdeveloped, this is so limiting for all, particularly the most able at KS5, before embarking on more expert undergraduate study. Brave decisions should be encouraged around what is considered ‘important knowledge and understanding’ in a subject curriculum, with teachers improving their clarity on what should then be assessed and why.
- More able students benefit greatly from frequent learning checks beyond that of surface, recall knowledge, including application and depth of understanding, often well beyond an examination mark scheme.
- Flexible thinking and cognitive resilience should be deliberately developed, through the skilful selection of deeper learning opportunities for the most able students. This must move beyond ‘more of the same’ and additional ‘surface knowledge’, to deeper understanding of and diverse application of knowledge through wider lenses and study beyond set content; and should subsequently be assessed as such, not narrowed in its assessment by adhering to examination board mark schemes. Best practice involved assessment opportunities with a truly enriched focus on ‘doing so much more with less’. This was particularly evidenced with the most able at KS5.
- Increased levels of home/school contact, particularly focused on subject-specific information, wider opportunities and support, should be maintained and further considered. This will continue to improve parental awareness of their children’s ability and the unique challenges encountered by the most able students, as well as the opportunities available to them.
The perfectionist attribute that we see in many of our more able students did lead to additional worry during this period. Common concerns included:
- Periods of uncertainty about the nature of the exam season and evidence-gathering opportunities, fuelled noticeably by over-analysis of online speculation and over-scrutiny of exam board materials when released, revealing a real fear if teachers appeared to veer away from this.
- Course content that was perceived as ‘missed’ or not taught live in school, and the impact that would have not just on final grades but on student ability to be successful in further study.
- Grade inflation and the potential impact on university offers and the perceived validity of grades this year, and in the future.
This does highlight the need for us to focus on explicitly developing more able students’ self-awareness, regulation and confidence, and workload and wellbeing management, through our more able programmes.
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Posted By Hilary Lowe,
17 January 2019
Updated: 22 December 2020
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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.
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Posted By Stephen Parry-Jones,
04 December 2018
Updated: 22 December 2020
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Stephen Parry-Jones, Seren Network hub coordinator for Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil, takes a look at the network’s successes to date and plans to extend its coverage…
The Seren Network arose from concerns expressed by Lord Murphy, the former Cabinet Minister, that numbers of Welsh undergraduates at Oxford had declined. Lord Murphy was then appointed Welsh Government Oxbridge Ambassador and asked to explore possible reasons; he produced his final report in 2014, which can be viewed on the Seren website.
I was one of 11 individuals, drawn from every Welsh local authority, who were charged with turning his suggestion into some sort of reality. The emphasis was to be on bringing academically gifted sixth-formers together in “hubs” and providing them with super-curricular activities, as well as the additional support and guidance that a strong Oxbridge application requires.
Increase in Oxbridge applications from Wales
Many extension classes, visits from HE outreach officials, and trips to universities later, I was both pleased and relieved that the first independent evaluation, in 2017, was positive, in particular that “Seren makes a positive contribution to raising aspirations, boosting confidence and encouraging students to think more ambitiously about their university choices.”
The numbers are still being crunched, but it was encouraging that UCAS reported a 6% increase in “October 15th” applications from Wales – and this from a smaller pool of 17-year-olds, and with only the three pilot hubs functioning. Cambridge in particular has reported an upturn in the number of applications from Wales and, more importantly, the number of offers made. Applications to Oxford have also increased, though we have still to crack the challenging entrance tests that applicants face.
We quickly began to see that Seren was not just about Oxbridge, but about high-tariff university courses in general, whether in Wales, the wider UK or beyond. In my own hub, which serves some of Wales’ most deprived regions, I have been delighted to see Seren students taking up places at the most competitive universities, with Bristol, Imperial, Manchester and Warwick proving very popular. One student from our first cycle also gained a place at Yale, and others are now determined to follow her.
Plans to extend Seren’s work to KS3 and 4
Of the evaluation’s recommendations, perhaps the most significant was the idea that Seren extend its work into Key Stages 3 and 4. This was something Seren hub coordinators and heads of sixth-form were already trying to do: we had very early on realised that remedial work post-16, focusing just on the sixth form, is simply too late. Ambitions often crystallise in Key Stage 3 and GCSE options, so critical for future pathways, are increasingly made in Year 8.
As with the hubs geared to sixth formers, work here will probably start with pilots, though existing hub coordinators are well placed to broker partnerships between schools, universities and organisations such as NACE and The Brilliant Club.
Local universities are also a supremely valuable resource, and Rhondda Cynon Taf has for several years organised an intensive day for its most academic Year 9 pupils at the University of South Wales. Subjects on offer have included philosophy, Mandarin, solving unusual maths problems, and Latin. Many of those attending had previously been unaware of the university’s existence, and were surprised to find they were able to cope with intellectual exercises of demanding nature. For some, it was the first time they had realised that they were “clever.”
Another crucial asset is local students at top-flight universities who are willing to talk to school pupils. Rhondda Cynon Taf has run an Oxbridge day for Year 10 pupils, featuring stimulating Q&A sessions with current undergraduates. We have now extended this to parents, and have been lucky to be able to call upon access and outreach fellows from both universities to talk to parents on a “cluster” basis. This has been particularly important in busting those Oxbridge myths which can do so much to deter able learners who are not from privileged backgrounds.
Our challenge now will be how we avoid diluting Seren’s offer without excluding those who might benefit – keeping in mind NACE’s core principles that ability is fluid, can be developed, and is closely linked to mindset.
After reading modern history at Oxford, Stephen Parry-Jones taught for 38 years. Apart from a five-year stint in a London direct grant grammar school, his career was spent in comprehensive schools in South Wales. He retired as a deputy head in 2015, and is now Seren hub coordinator for Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil education authorities.
Tags:
access
aspirations
CEIAG
collaboration
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higher education
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Wales
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