November 2023

 This edition will mainly focus on the IDSR and ASP. It's going to be tough to make this entertaining, but I'll do my best to keep it readable.

As previousy mentioned, IDSR and ASP were updated (to a greater or lesser extent) with 2023 Primary Performance Data on Thursday 19th October and I've been told by one of the readers of this newsletter that when  they got the call from Ofsted on Wednesday the 18th the inspector  already had a copy of their IDSR.

The IDSR  and ASP don't appear to be running to exactly the same data-release  schedules: the IDSR already had statements relating to Phonics, KS1  & KS2 when they were published on 19th, but at that time ASP only  had 2023 data for KS2. It has since been updated with 2023 KS1 data but  at the time of writing we are still waiting for 2023 Phonics data to  appear in ASP. Another difference between the two is that ASP has a slot  for MTC data (currently still 2022) while Phonics odes not appear to  mention this assessment at all.
The ASP data release  schedule did originally state that KS2, KS1 and Phonics would be made  available in October, but it has now been updated to 'November' for  Phonics. MTC is also scheduled for November, along with KS4 performance  data and Absence data for the 1st 2 terms of 2022-23.

In order to access the IDSR and ASP you need to log in to the DfE Sign-in Portal.  Each user has individual permissions and you will only be able to see  ASP if you have the appropriate permissions. There will be someone in  school (oftern the Buisness Manager) who is the 'administrator' for the  system and can update users permissions.
Once logged in you should be able to see a link to Analysing School Performance and when you click on it ASP will be launched. The data for each key  stage is organised in separate Tabs near the top of the screen, and  there is a vertical side-bar menu which allows you to view reports for  specific subjects, groups etc. If you're not a fan of playing with data  online and would prefer to download and read a report, the best thing to  do is click on the 'All Reports' Tab, then click on 'School Performance Summary'  and then click on the 2022-23 edition of the report. This again brings  up an interactive web-format report, but you can also click on 'Download pdf to print or save'  on the right hand side of the screen. Again, at the time of writing,  this report only includes 2023 data for KS1 and KS2, not Phonics.

The IDSR can also be downloaded from the 'All Reports' Tab of ASP, it's the 1st link at the top of the list of available reports. When you click on it reveals another link 'visit the OFSTED IDSR service'.  When you click on this, if you are lucky it will take you straight to  the IDSR but sometimes it makes you log in again. Once there, the IDSR  is again presented in web-based format by default, but there's a button  that allows you to 'Print this page' - you can 'print' to pdf or to a  printer for a paper copy.
Once you have managed to  download/view the IDSR you may be even more underwhelmed than usual  especially in terms of the information relating to academic performance.  The sections of the IDSR are broadly the same as before:
School Characteristics
Ethnicity
SEND characteristics
Staffing
Links to alternative provision and alternative providers
Absence
Suspensions & permanent exclusions
Progress & attainment at KS1 and KS2
Pupil groups

Most  primary schools IDSRs won't exceed 3 pages and the progress and  attainment section will rarely fill more than half a page. They've dropped the previous format in which there was a  statement for every subject at each key stage, even if was just 'there is nothing to highlight for...". Instead, they are only listing those measures which are significantly above or below national. It is quite possible, therefore, that there will be some schools that don't have anything at all shown in the Progress & Attainment and Pupil Group sections of the IDSR.

It is worth noting, however, that if you are using the web-based interactive format of the IDSR you can click on the 'Non-significant data' link  which should reveal all of the performance measures for KS2 and KS1  (which includes Phonics); this will show the school result compared to  the national result, along with the national percentile in which the  school result sits. The reporting of  percentiles in the IDSR is new this year (previously they just told you  whether the result was significantly above or below national and if it  was in the top or bottom 20% of schools nationally) and you had to  cross-reference against a technical spreadsheet to see the detail of  where your result fell in the national distribution. It should be noted  that if your school result is in 100th percentile it is in the top 1% of national results and that if it is in the 1st percentile it is in the bottom 1% nationally.


It's  been a relatively quiet month in respect of other educational news,  especially once the dust had settled on conference season (see previous  update) and since everyone's attention has been focussed on events  elsewhere in the world. It's worth providing a reminder of a few things  that may have slipped under the radar:

• Guidance on 2024 Optional KS1 tests was published on 11th October
• The 2024 KS2 Assessment & Reporting arrangements were published on 19th October
• Assessment & Reporting arrangements for 2024 Phonics was updated on 1st November
  

Notable national statistical releases scheduled for November include:

• Provisional 2023 A Level and other 16-18 results on 16th November
• Multiplication Tables Check attainment data for 2023 on 23rd November. (Presumably ASP will be updated at the same time).
• Exclusions data for Autumn 2022 on 23rd November
• 2023 EYFSP data on 30th November. There's no indication that this information will be made available at a school level in  either ASP or IDSR. As far as I am aware, the only system which is still  reporting school level EYFSP data is Perspective Lite. FFT Aspire  should continue to use EYFSP data (rightly or wrongly) to produce  estimates of future attainment but it has never reported school level  results at EYFSP.
  

I'm really struggling to find  anything worthy of finishing off this month's missive, Gillian Keegan's  pathetic attempt to rile the culture warriors over RHSE curriculum materials thankfully didn't seem to attract too much attention, while Labour quickly squashed her threats to implement minimum service levels by sayng they would immediately scrap them when they come into office.  "Thankfully" Gavin Williamson has come to my rescue (he can always be  relied upon to provide something horrible/hilarious to talk about):  evidence submitted to the COVID inquiry shows that he resisted calls for the introduction of masks in schools simply because he didn't want to 'surrender' to the unions. I'm afraid  the COVID inquiry is repeatedly confirming what we already knew: that  while schools were not just being left to sort out the crisis on their  own, their efforts were also being actively hampered by the chaos,  incompetence, greed, deceit and immorality that permeated the whole of  government at that time.  

Apologies for the long delay in getting one of these missives out  to you this month. This is partly due to me not knowing where or when to  start making sense of all of the stuff coming out of the party  conferences, partly because I'm still really busy writing reports and  partly because Ofsted have been all over Leeds like a rash recently -  including at the school where I'm a governor.
For those of  you that have already had a visit this term, I hope it went well. For  those of you that are waiting for an iminent call, our experience is  that it was a tough but fair process, with a major focus on Persistent  Absence. I know that this is a challenge for many schools in Leeds: our  inspector was insistent that they needed to see evidence, not just of  what the school was doing to tackle and reduce PA, but also that those  activities were having an impact. Having analysis already  at hand, or the capacity to produce it at short notice would be very  beneficial going into the inspection window.

Talking of OFSTED and data, our inspector mentioned that they were expecting the 2023 performance data to be made available to them 'very soon'. The data release timetable on  ASP states that provisional KS2, KS1 & Phonics data should be  released in October, and the IDSRs were published in half term  last year, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect the same this year.  I'm checking the website regularly and will send an email to you all as  soon as I see or hear anything. It's worth noting that a couple of weeks  ago OFSTED announced that performance data will once again be the “starting point on inspection” once the 2023 data becomes available and that recent training sessions  and conferences for inspectors had indicated that if performance data  was poor, inspectors would need to make  sure evidence showed the school was on the way to improvement for it to  achieve a ‘good’ grade.

For those of you eyeing up the prospect of an inspection in 2024-25 or 2025-26, it is worth remembering that KS2 outcomes for 2024 & 2025 will be measured solely in terms of attainment:  progress measures will not be available due to the lack of KS1 prior  attainment data for those cohorts. I imagine, therefore, that it will be  even more important than ever to focus on those children in your  current Y6 who will be on the borderline of achieving the expected  and/or higher standards, in order to boost your 'percentages' as much as  possible. It feelss like a backwards step, but an unavoidable one due  to the lack of data caused by COVID.

Since my last update the DfE have published national attainment data at KS2 and KS1/Phonics.  There won't be anything new to you in these releases if you've had one  of my Analysis Reports and/or been looking at the data in Perspective  Lite, which has once again turned out to be extremely accurate and  available months before the official data is released.

There's a few of you on the circulation list who are interested in Secondary Phase data: on 19th October DfE will be releasing 2023 KS4 national attainment data, KS4 attainment data at MAT/LA level, as well as Destinations data for 2022.

On  to conference season. With the risk of testing out how sensitive your  email systems are about bad language, I think that the announcements  coming out of the Tory Party conference at the beginning of the month  can be summarised as "Shit that shouldn't have happened", "Shit that has  already happened" and "Shit that ain't ever gonna happen":

• The "Shit that shouldn't have happened" relates to the fact that the DfE have made a monumental blunder in their calculation of school budget allocations for 2024-25. Apparently this error was spotted in September but wasn't  announced until a few hours after the conference finished, just after  5pm on Friday 6th October. This was obviously done in an attempt to  avoid negative headlines, but it has still caused consternation, with  estimates suggesting that this error will mean that the average  secondary school will be £57,970 worse-off than predicted in  July, and the average primary will be £12,420 worse-off. To add insult  to injury, Nick Gibb has recently confirmed that the DfE will not be honouring the original allocations and that schools will have to work out what to do about the shortfall themselves.
• The "Shit that has already happened" is Gillian Keegan's main (only?) policy announcement that schools will be required to implement a ban on mobile phones.  This is despite the fact that most schools (and nearly all secondary  schools) already do have some form of ban in place. It also follows Nick  Gibb making the same annoucement in 2019 and Gavin Williamson repeating  it in 2021.
• The "Shitt that ain't ever gonna happen" came from Rishi Sunak, announcing his 'British Baccalaureate'.  Ignoring the fact that this government have repeatedly demonstrated  that they couldn't be trusted to succesfully deliver a pizza, delivering  a major reform to the examination system such as this would take many  years to accomplish - which is time that even Rishi knows that he  doesn't have.
  

Moving on to Labour Party, who look  almost certain to be taking over at some point next year and who were  definitely trying to look like a government-in-waiting at their  conference. I'm a bit worried that if and when they do win the next  election, that my monthly emails won't be quite as entertaining, but I  think we could all do with a bit of a lack of excitement for a while. A  lot of Labour's announcements were very thin on detail, but here are  some highlights:

• Sir David Bell (former Chief Inspector) will lead a review of Early Years provision. This will look at widening childcare eligibility, increasing  the amount of primary school-based nursery provision and  looking how to remove restrictions on local authorities from opening  nursery provision. It will also look at improving early years staffing.  Crucially though, there is no mention of how much if any additional  funding will be provided.
• The creation of a 'maths equivalent of phonics'.  Bridget Phillipson was very keen to point out that it was the last  Labour government that actually started the introduction of phonics in  English schools and that one of the first things they would do when they  take over is to apply the same principles to the teaching of maths.  This will include a scheme to develop maths skills among primary  teachers, which will be funded as part of the £210m already committed by  the party to provide an entitlement to training and professional  development for all teachers.
• Phillipson's speech also  included some vague committments to deliver "a richer curriculum woven  through with speaking, listening and digital skills", to turning around the "tutoring disaster” and to introduce "annual inspections for the issues that matter most"  (safeguarding??). However, they didn't spend very much time at all  talking about how they planned to resolve the teacher recruitment crisis  and when pushed on this they had to admit they were were "still working  on" the details of how to solve this most-pressing of issues.
  

The Lib Dems have made some quite ambitious promises on education (it's quite easy to make promises you are unlikely to have to keep):

• Providing free, full-time childcare for all children from age two, and for working parents, from the age of nine months.
• Reviewing funding rates for early years providers to ensure they ‘genuinely’ reflect the cost of delivering high-quality places.
• Closing the attainment gap by giving disadvantaged children aged two to  four an additional five free hours of early years education a week,  along with tripling the Early Years Pupil Premium to £1,000 per year.
• Extra funding for local councils to halve the amount schools pay towards  supporting the costs of a child with additional needs, from £6,00 to  £3,000.
• Increase funding for schools.
• Extend free school meals to every child in primary school and to  secondary school pupils whose families receive Universal Credit.
• Reforming Ofsted inspection
  

And in the spirit of inclusion and positivity, I've also looked up the Green Party's education policies.  However, my inclusivity does not extend to the Reform Party; I'm not  prepared to waste my time reading about what those poisonous toads want  to do to our children.

That's it for now, all the best for the rest of the month and I hope you all have a lovely break over half-term.

I hope that you all had a good first week of term and that you  still had enough 'sparkle' left in the tank this morning to greet the  new week with vim & vigour!

Thank you  for all of the positive feedback I've received for the Early Analysis  Reports I've been writing for you over the summer, I've still got some  left to get done this month but I'll get them out to those of you who  are still waiting as soon as possible.

The 2023 KS2 Tables Checking Exercise opens today and will be available until 22nd September for you to apply  to have 'recently arrived' children from the performance tables  figures. Apparently you will be able to use the same portal to "amend  KS1 data, subject to specific criteria" although I'm not sure what that  means, exactly!

From Wednesday, you should be able to access the results of any Marking and Clerical Reviews you have submitted, via the Primary Assessment Gateway. If pupil results have been amended as a result of a review, they can be  accessed in the ‘View and download KS2 test results’ form in the  ‘Available activity’ section. It's important to note, however, that if you have had any successful marking reviews they won't be reflected in the September checking exercise data (but they should  be reflected in the Performance Tables Data published in  December).

The deadline for downloading your Multiplication Tables Check Results is September 29th. Just to keep you on your toes, this information is  accessed via yet another portal, the link provided in the STA newsletter  takes you to the DfE Sign-In website, but I haven't got an account which will allow me see this  level of detail. I assume that if you have got access, once you're  logged in there will be another link to take you to the MTC section.

Statutory guidance for KS2 Assessment Arrangements for 2024 is already available to download, but just a reminder that  there isn't going to be an equivalent KS1 version because from 2024  onwards KS1 assessments are now optional. Apparently, the DfE  will continue to produce materials for optional tests and more details  will be available later in the autumn.

Another website you'll be needing a login for is the Reception Baseline Assessment Portal. Apparently, the NfER will have sent details of your school ID, username and password in August, but if you can't find that information then apparently you can phone the RBA helpline on 0330 088 417. Good luck with that. As usual, the RBA needs to be administered within the first 6 weeks of term.

If you didn't request one of my Early Analysis Reports and need to get hold of national data relating to KS2 then the DfE statistics will be released tomorrow here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/key-stage-2-attainment-provisional-2023.

National KS1 and Phonics data will be released on an as-yet unspecified date in "September or October" here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/key-stage-1-and-phonics-screening-check-attainment-2023.

FFT have  been quick-off-the-blocks this year and there appears to be a full  suite of KS2 and KS1 self-evaluation analyses available for at least  some of the schools whose data I have been given access to. If you've  maintained your subscription then you should be able to log in and see what's available for your school.

On to the "news".

Those of you who read my June and July updates won't have been surprised by the RAAC scandal which finally exploded into full-view of the general public when  Gillian Keegan 'lost her bottle' three days before the start of term and  decided she couldn't hide the facts any longer. This whole saga reminds  me of that long-running storyline in the TV drama Succession, in which  every new head of a particular department within the company is informed  of a 'dirty little secret' which has to be kept in the dark, and that  everything will be OK as long as it stays a secret until the incumbent  has moved on to another job and it becomes someone else's problem.  Unfortunately for Gill, the skeletons have come falling out of the  closet (and the concrete has come falling out of the ceilings) on her  watch. Poor thing - and no one has told her she is doing a f*#&%£g  good job. As with the TV show of course, the real villians are the  people at the top of the corportate ladder, the people who made the  decisions to cut-back on the school building and maintenance programmes.  I'm finding the basic Maths of this saga quite entertaining: when Sunak  was accused of cutting the school re-building programme to 50 schools per year he got really upset and proudly reminded us that he had in fact been  responsible for authorising a 'flagship' package of funding which would  see 500 schools re-built or renovated. Over a decade. To  the casual observer, 50 new schools a year might sound like a lot but  we've got more than 22,000 schools in England, so even if you are  currently benefitting from a relatively new school building you better  look after it really well, coz at that rate it's not going to get  replaced for another 440 years!

At the end of last week, MPs approved the appontment of Sir Martyn Oliver as the new head of Ofsted.  Apparently, he was one of only two applicants who were deemed to be  appropriate candidates for consideration, despite the fact that he (like  Spielman) has never been an inspector himself. It sounds like Ofsted  are suffering their own recruitment crisis! As head of the Outwood  Grange Trust, he obviously has a lot of experience of running schools,  but it is interesting to note that he got the job despite the fact that,  as recently as January of this year, OGAT was being threatened with the removal of one of its schools by the DfE for high exclusion rates. It will be interesting to see what changes he introduces and how quickly he has to deploy his "flattening the grass" techniques against his critics.

Finally  some good news, at least for most of my readers who are based in Leeds  and have long-endured a local funding system which means that securing  an EHCP is rarer than finding a government minister who hasn't secured a  lucrative publicly-funded contract for a close family member. The  'good' news is that schools in 55 other local authority areas will soon  be finding it just as difficult to get an EHCP, because the DfE have quietly launched a programme to introduce 20% cuts to the numbers of new EHCPs issued in those  areas. It's good to see that the government's commitment to 'levelling  the playing field' is as strong as ever, even if it is levelling down,  rather than levelling up. If you want to see who the 'lucky 55' are,  here's the link.

All  the best for the rest of the month and I'll be back in touch if there's  any unexpected important news over the next few weeks.

 Hello again everyone, I'm back at work and cracking on with my rather  long list of data reports that need to be written over the summer.

From  what I've seen on social media, it looks like a lot of schools  struggled to access the Primary Assessment Gateway again this year,  despite the DfE undertaking a review of what went wrong last year and  stating that they were confident that the shambles wouldn't be repeated.  I hope you didn't have too stressful a time trying to download your  results on Tuesday.

I expect you have already looked at the national headline data for KS2, which is available here https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-2-attainment-national-headlines/2022-23.

As  was the case with the other key stages, it seems that there has been  barely any recovery in the KS2 attainment figures: the combined RWM  figure is unchanged and the Reading expected standard figure has even  fallen by a further 2%pts, despite the pass mark being lowered this year  (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2023-scaled-scores-at-key-stage-2). Writing and Maths are the only subjects that have seen an improvement in the 'pass-rate', and only by 2%pts for both.

The other big news this week is that the DfE have announced that they will not be publishing KS2 progress figures for 2024 and 2025.  You'll remember that I was hoping that this would be the case as it  seemed very misguided to try use EYFSP, Phonics or the Y4MTC as a  baseline for calculating progress, and it seems as though they have come  to the same conclusion. It's a rare example of common sense prevailing!  
However, there's nothing in the announcement to suggest that they  will be providing any contextual data alongside the raw attainment  figures for 2024 & 2025, which is a worry. Hopefully this will be  addressed soon.

All the best for the last week of term, I hope  you all have a lovely break over the summer and don't spend the whole  time worrying about how you are going to balance your budgets after the  latest announcements about "fully funded" pay rises. I enjoyed watching  Gillian Keegan squirming through her interview with Naga Munchetty on BBC Breakfast News this morning. It was at 7.35am if you want to fast-forward to the juicy  bit. It was pretty obvious that Naga was deeply unimpressed with her  lack-of grip on the detail! 

 Hello again everyone, I've had a few schools ask about this and I  should probably have included it in Monday's email - so here's my view  on what national data are available for inclusion in your reports to  parents at KS1 and KS2:

• offcial 2023 national KS1 data isn't available until October
• the  first official 2023 national KS2 data isn't available until September  and even then it's provisional and not confirmed until December.
• taking the above into account, your only option is to use the most recently available published data - which is from 2022.
• here's a link for Key Stage 1 2022 national data
• and here's a link for Key Stage 2 2022 national data
• alternatively, if I did a report for you last year you should be able to get everything you need from there.
  

Hope that helps, and I hope the report-writing process isn't too long & painful!

Hi  everyone - I hope that all of the assessment-related admin that you had  to do in June went as smoothly as possible and that you are looking  forward to the last few weeks of term.

Last  month was challenging for me too, as I had to had to take a chunk of  time away from work to help nurse my Dad through the last week of his  life. He had late stage cancer and wanted to die at home but needed  round-the-clock care, so my sister and I both had to go down to  Birmingham to help out. My Dad gave me much to be grateful for  (not-least my luscious head of hair) so it was good to be able to give  something back at the end. His last gift to me is that his funeral has  been set for the 11th July so I'm going to miss the "excitement" of KS2  results day and won't be around to provide updates on the results as  they emerge, or to empathise with you when the systems crash and the  inevitable technical issues arise. I'll try to catch up with events as  soon as I get back to Leeds and circulate some provisional headlines  later that week.

National School Census data for 2023 was published on June 8th. The big 'story' coming out of this data is the increase in the numbers of children who are now eligible for Free School Meals.  The number of children eligible for FSM has grown by over 122,00 and  now stands at more than 2 million. Across all phases, 23.8% of pupils  are currently eligible for FSM, up from 22.5% in 2021-22. It's a  sobering thought that in one of the richest countries in the world, a  quarter of its children are living in poverty. The 'true' figure is  probably even higher due to the very low income thresholds for FSM  eligibility and that some families don't claim; the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that about 29% of children across the UK are living in  poverty, with certain groups much more affected than others: 44% of  children in lone parent families, 48% of BME children, and 42% of  children in larger families. Moreover, they estimate that 71% of the  children who live in poverty are in a household in which at least one  person is working. On 28th June the results of a survey of public health practitioners was published; 65% of respondents reported children’s health had got  worse as a result of hunger and poor nutrition, more than half said they  had seen children who were putting on weight  slower than expected (53%), noted changes in their behaviour (55%), and  were experiencing more frequent mental health problems (51%). Such  worrying findings are strengthening calls for the government to introduce Universal Free School Meals across all phases of the school system, but this is something that ministers have so far refused to countenance, and the Labour Party have also recently said that different measures would be more effective  in tackling poverty. I'm sure many of you have seen evidence of rising  poverty at first hand in your own schools, and from my perspective it  seems perverse that our system puts an infinitely larger emphasis on  accountability for academic standards than it does on accountability for  keeping children fed. And don't even get me started on the paltry increase in FSM funding that's just been announced!

Another notable feature of the Census data is the falling numbers of children in schools across the country: the total headcount across all phases is  still growing, but the numbers in the youngest cohorts continues to  fall. The largest national cohort is currently in Year 6 (713,000  pupils) and the numbers drop steadily through all of the younger  cohorts, with only 632,000 in the current Reception cohort (a decrease  of about 12%). The Leeds figures show a 10% decrease in the numbers  between Year 6 and Reception.

School Census data relating to Special Educational Needs was published separately to the main data set on June 22nd. These figures reveal a very substantial increase in the numbers of children with identified SEN and in the numbers who have EHCPs.  The number of children in England requiring SEN Support has gone up by  more than 53,000 since last year, with the percentage figure rising from  12.6% to 13.0% of the school-age population (1.2 million children). The  number of children in England with an EHCP has increased by almost  34,000 since last year, with the percentage figure rising from 4.0% to  4.3% of the school-age  population (389,000 children). In Leeds there has been an even bigger  increase in the SEN support figures (they've gone up from 13.4% to  15.0%) but thanks to the "unique" way in which EHCPs are administered in  Leeds (which you all know & love so well) the Leeds EHCP percentage  has remained unchanged at just 2.5%.

The DfE continue to publish weekly data relating to school attendance, and although this data collection is still officially voluntary, Nick Gibb recently informed the Education Select Committee that he was considering making it a mandatory requirement for schools  to submit this information.  The latest figures show that the overall  absence rate in primary schools for the year so far is 6.0%, while in  secondary schools it is 9.2%. Even more concerning is that the  persistent absence rate is 17% for primary schools and 27.5% for  secondary schools. These national figures hide the fact persistent  absence is a lot higher in many schools which serve very deprived  communities.

Looking forward to things that will be happening this month, the obvious 'biggie' is KS2 results day on 11th July -which as I've already mentioned- I will be absent for. The key  guidance on what is supposed to be happening and what you need to do can  be found here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/key-stage-2-tests-how-to-access-results-and-test-scripts.  I really do hope that it all goes a lot more smoothly than last year,  but as I've already reported in previous updates, there have been  worrying rumours about technical difficulties and issues with marking.

If you haven't had enough of submitting statutory assessment to the LA/DfE and want to do even more, FFT are running their Early Results Service for KS2, KS1, Phonics and EYFSP this year. You can read more details of this service here FFT Primary Early Results Service - FFT.  The key benefits of submitting data to this exercise is that it means  that you will then be able to access estimates of future attainment for  the relevant cohorts based on the assessment data you've submitted and  also to compare your results against those of participating schools  nationally - all in September. Obviously, those of you that have  requested an Early Analysis Report from me will be getting a very  detailed analysis of your school's results and how they compare to  national (and Leeds) performance. I can't accept any more requests for  Early Analysis Reports to be produced over the summer, but if you want  one and are able to wait until September, please feel free to get in  touch and I'll add you to the list. Schools that have already requested a  report have been emailed with information about how we are going to  proceed - some of these emails have been sent by my new assistant (my daughter who is back from Uni for the summer and who is doing some  work for me) and it is likely that she will be sending more emails out  to schools, so it would be great if you could add nina.stokes@ianstokes.org to your contacts list so that she doesn't end up in your 'Spam' folder!  It's fantastic having some help over this very busy period - I'm not  sure if it will enable me to undertake more work, but it should  mean I have fewer late nights, as well as make up for the fact that I'm  not as quick at doing all of the data processing as I used to be!

Looking  even further into the future, the DfE confirmed on 22nd June that the  "necessary legislative amendments have been made" so that KS1 assessments will no longer be a statutory requirement from 2023-24 onwards. They also confirmed that the reception baseline assessment (RBA) will replace the end of KS1  assessments as the baseline for cohort level primary progress measures.  This will happen when the first cohort with a statutory RBA reaches the  end of key stage 2 (KS2) in 2028. Personally, I'm worried that this will  be an absolute sh*t show and might be a major factor in the timing of  my early retirement! However, there are other major headaches which are  going to have to be faced before then, not least the issue of what we do about KS2 progress measures in 2024 & 2025.  The cohorts reaching the end of KS2 over the next two years don't have  any official KS1 'prior attainment' data because of the cancellation of  statutory assessments during the pandemic; this means that the  traditional methodology used for calculating progress at KS2 won't be  able to be used. I noted in the May update that the DfE had said they  were looking at alternative options, and FFT have released a blogpost which looks at what some of those alternatives might be.  TLDR - none of the alternative options look any good and I'm keeping my  fingers crossed that they don't bother - and go with a 'contextual  attainment' approach instead, where individual schools are compared  against 'similar schools' using a sensible set of comparative data.

Finally, an update on an issue I mentioned briefly last month. The much-delayed NAO report on the Condition of School Buildings published last Wednesday revealed that an estimated 7000,000 children  are being taught in unsafe or ageing schools which require major  repairs. It's yet another reminder of the impact of the lack of  investment and underfunding which has intensified under the Conservative  government's austerity policies since 2010. The report states that more  than a third (24,000) of all English school buildings have exceeded  their estimated initial design life and that the DfE has identified 572  schools where reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete RAAC might be  present, so far confirming it in 65, of which 24 required immediate  action. It strikes me that if a school can be rated as 'Inadequate' by  OFSTED for weaknesses in its safeguarding admin & procedures, then  the imminent propsect of the collapse of a school's roof is at least as  big a threat to the safety of its pupils. Shouldn't inspectors be sent  into these schools as a matter of urgency so that parents can be made  aware of the risks to their children and so that the authorities  responsible for the buildings are held accountable??  

Hi everyone - hope you managed to get some R&R last week and are looking forward to the final half term of the year.

Blimey,  May was a bit 'full-on' wasn't it? It all seemed to be kicking-off  inbetween the bank holidays, so strap yourselves in for a whirlwind  re-cap of last months' highlights and horrors.

The month started on a quite positive note with the 'anyone-except-the-Tories' coalition doing very well in the local elections despite the government's attempt to suppress the vote by introducing  Photo ID requirements. Ironically, it seems as though this underhand  tactic has backfired on them and may have stopped some older Tory supporters from voting. This put  me in mind of Roger Skaer's now-famous explanation of the correlation  between #*!%ing around and finding out.

However,  as soon as we'd got over the excitement of the coronation and a 2nd  Bank Holiday in the space of a week, we were straight into KS2 SATs and the 'horror' of this year's Reading test.  I'm sure you'll all be aware of the press coverage around the  difficulty of this year's paper and the stories of children being left in tears.  Talking to a few head teachers in the days following the test I got  mixed feedback, so I decided to have a go at doing it myself when the paper was published on the 18th.  The word-count was obviously really high, but what I was most shocked  by was the number of questions that children were then expected to  answer, with each one requiring you to go back to the text, find the  relevant paragraph and work out the answer; mostly for just one mark. I  think I calculated that it would take the 'average' 11 year old about 35  minutes just to read all of 3 of the texts, leaving 25 minutes to  answer 42 questions; which works out at 35 seconds per question (not  leaving any time for checking etc). The test seemed to be intentionally  designed so that only the most-able would be able to finish it; the  obvious problem with this is that many (most?) schools coach their  children to try to complete the test in order to pick up as many points  as possible, leading many children to feel as though they've 'failed' if  they don't get through it all. Another aspect of the test I found  problematic was the subject matter, which seemed once-again to provide  an advantage to children who have benefitted from privileged  life-experiences such as camping trips and foreign holidays. I suppose  you could use this as a justification for spending all of next year's  Pupil Premium grant on ensuring that your most-needy children get to go  on residentials and trips so that they gain the 'cultural capital' they  clearly need in order to be able to engage with the SATS papers!
The  headlines following the test mainly focussed on how upset 'bright'  children who were expecting to do well were made to feel; I found this a  little depressing because we don't get the same complaints every year  when 1 in every 4 children are effectively labelled as failures by being  told they haven't met 'the expected standard'. This is a sentiment  which was very well articulated by a Yorkshire headteacher in a recent blog-post. Another really good discussion of the difficulties and pitfalls associated with testing came from Daisy Christodoulou whose paper "Three Suggestions for SATs reform"  is full of insight and good ideas; not least of which is that we should  get rid of the "working towards/expected standard/higher standard"  labels and just report the scaled score results. It's always struck me  as very problematic that a child who gets a score of 99 is told that  they haven't met the expected standard while children who who score 100  or 109 are both labelled as having achieved the same standard.
Of  course, the DfE responded to all the criticisim in their customarily  sensitive manner, stating that the SATs were 'meant to be challenging'  and that "SATs  play a key role in helping to identify pupils’ strengths or where they  may have fallen behind as they head to secondary school" which -as  we all know- is complete guff. Nick Gibb promised to take a look at the  test and undertake a review but I'm not expecting anything to come of  it.

Following hot on the heals of  the headlines about the tests themselves were are series of worrying if  not unexpected stories about problems with the marking of the papers,  including CAPITA having to delay the start of marking by a week due to technical difficulties, markers being locked out of the system when it did finally get launched, and markers complaining about rates of pay and workload expectations. It seems that not many lessons have been learned as a  result of last year's chaos and it doesn't bode well for the number of  re-marks that will be required and the possibility of the repeat of  problems with lost papers etc.

Given all of  the negative headlines around SATs, the release of the latest PIRLS  international Reading league tables must have come as a very welcome  relief to Nick Gibb - and boy - he really made the most of it! He  celebrated England's 4th place position in the rankings with a wonderfully self-congratulatory article in the Daily Torygraph, which reads as if it is Nick himself who has  spent the last 10 years delivering daily phonics sessions in KS1. I've  always been very sceptical about the reliability of any international  education comparative measures, especially when they are used by  politicians to champion (or attack) a specific strategy or policy, and I  was glad to see that some commentators were able to flag-up a range of  problems with this latest set of data. Prof. Christian Bokhove raised a number of issues, including the fact that we actuallly saw the  biggest improvement in our PIRLS rankings between 2006-2011 following  reforms introduced by the last Labour government. John Cosgrove noted that a number of countries who previously outperformed us didn't  take part in 2021, and that English pupils didn't even take the PIRLS  tests until 2022, while most other contries took them in 2021 during the  height of the pandemic. Finally, Adrian Bethune rily noted that if Gibb was going to take credit for Phonics and  Reading results then perhaps he should also take 'credit' for all of the  other things that have happened on his government's watch, such as an  extra half a million children living in poverty, 1.5 million more food  banks than in 2010, the UK having the lowest levels of children's  well-being in Europe, and a crippling teacher recruitment crisis.

Any PIRLS-induced positivity at DfE headquarters was probably very swiftly dampened by leaking of the news on 21st May that the Independent Pay Review Body have recommended a 6.5% pay-rise for teachers in 2023/24. This gives them a really big problem because they have  previously used the PRB as a shield to refuse pay-rise demands; they are  now either going to have to accept the recommendation and agree an in  increase which is higher than the one they could have probably  negotiated with the Unions if they'd actually tried, or completely row  back on their previous position and undermine the system of independent  pay reviews.

And yet another hand-grenade  was lobbed into Nick Gibb's office on the 23rd May when an Opposition  Debate in the House of Commons forced him to commit to publishing data  which will reveal just how many schools are in such a poor condition that they are in danger of collapse.  Given how hard they tried to avoid publishing this information, it's  likely to not make happy reading and the extent of the backlog of  essential maitenance work will probably mean that this will be a problem  that will have to be dealt with by future governments, for may years to  come.

Given how well it's all going for  the government on the education-front, it's no surprise to see that  there has been a series of recent resignations of key advisers,  who are probably keen to escape the sinking ship as swiftly as  possible. However, one person going in the opposite direction and  re-joining the DfE is Will Bickford Smith who is returning to the  department after only a few months away at a University.  I don't know  much about this person, other than that he is the founder of  'Conservative Teachers' (I wonder what their membership figures are  like??) and that he looks like Michael Gove's baby brother. We'll have to keep an eye on him to see what wonderful ideas he comes up with over the next few months.

Thank goodness that's all over - and I didn't even get to mention Katharine Birbalsingh's completely unhinged speech at the NAT-C conference!
So what's happening in June? well it's mainly all about submitting data:

We've already had the announcement of the KS1 raw score to Scaled Score conversions on 1st Jine, which are almost the same as last year, so nothing to get  too excited about. There was some confusion caused a couple of weeks ago  when the STA newsletter stated that the KS2 scaled score  conversions would be published on 22nd May but that was just (another)  error and they won't actually come out until July, as is usually the  case.

• Schools will need to administer the summer phonics screening check during the week commencing Monday 12 June.
• Phonics screening check data should be submitted to the local authority via EFT, S2S or email to cs.systems@leeds.gov.uk by Friday 23 June 2023. The LA have been very keen to remind schools that they need to ensure  tha phonics results are submitted as a single file for both  Y1 pupils and any Y2 pupils who are taking the check in summer 2023.
• KS1 teacher assessment data should be submitted to the local authority via EFT, S2S or email to cs.systems@leeds.gov.uk by Tuesday 27 June 2023.
• EYFSP data should be submitted to the local authority via EFT, S2S or email to cs.systems@leeds.gov.uk by Friday 30 June 2023.
• KS2 teacher assessment data should be submitted on Primary Assessment Gateway by Friday 30 June 2023. 
• More guidance from the LA on submitting data can be found here.
  

Once  we've got through all of that gubbins it'll be time for me roll-up my  sleeves and spend July and August writing reports based on all of the  data that has been generated. I've already had more than enough  report-requests to keep me busy all summer; but if you haven't got round  to requesting one yet and would like one, just let me know and I'll try  to get it done for you asap in September. I'll be sending another email  out to everyone who is already on the list later today with more  information. 

 Hello  everyone - I hope you managed to enjoy a bit of a break over the bank  holiday weekend and that today is going as smoothly as possible; whether  you are fully open, partially open or fully closed to pupils.

From  a 'data' perspective, we're getting very close to the sharp-end of the  year. I'm sure all of your Year 6 pupils will be spending the coronation  weekend patriotically preparing for their SATs and that they will all  be 100% fresh and ready to do their best next Tuesday morning .
Then  it's on to KS1 tests & assessments, Phonics Screening Check and the  Multiplication Tables Check. I'm sure you've got all of the relevant  dates in your diaries, but if you want to double check anything you  should be able to get what you need from here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/primary-assessments-future-dates

Once  all of the tests and assessments have been completed, test papers have  been returned for marking and assessment data has been submitted, we can  start to look forward to the highlight of everyone's year: logging into  the Primary Assessment Gateway (PAG) to download the KS2 results - and maybe even having the pleasure of needing to phone the helpline! Just a reminder that the big day is happening a week later than usual this year on Tuesday 11th July.
To say that this process did not go entirely smoothly last year is something of an understatement, and the Standards & Testing Agency have recently published a 'Lessons Learnt' Report which looks at what went wrong in 2022 and what they are doing to make  sure these problems don't recur in 2023. Within this report there are  some pretty shameful admissions of failure, including:

• the average response time to calls from school on the helpline was 53 minutes.
• "many" schools had issues logging in to  the PAG on results day due to system capacity being exceeded. They  don't quantify exactly what proportion of schools couldn't log into the  system, but that's probably because it was nearly everyone. They say  that this was because "system capacity was exceeded", which essentially  means that the website crashed because it hadn't been designed to cope  with (!surprise surprise!) lots of schools logging in at the same time. 
• some schools also had issues uploading their  teacher assessment data earlier in the cycle, and this caused further  "inconvenience and frustration".
• results were not available on results day for 7,437 pupils, for one or more subjects.
• around 4,000 scripts were unaccounted for on results  day. STA and Capita worked together to investigate the situation and  locate missing scripts, and by September they had identified, marked, and  returned results for around 2,000 such scripts. Ultimately, 2,251  scripts were however deemed lost, affecting 1,900 pupils in total,  significantly more than in previous years.
  

In response to the severe issues encountered last year, STA say that they have:

• recruited additional helpline staff and are providing full training
• taken steps to improve the quality and speed of responses across the helpline.
• improved the information and guidance provided to schools around the  tests programme, which should lead to fewer queries  being raised via the helpline.
• made changes to the PAG website, and are running a robust programme of  performance tests. This will ensure the  system will cope with the large spike of users at the point the results  became available for download in July.
• put in place clear reconciliation points at key stages of the script scanning and marking process to  track scripts throughout the process.
• developed clearer guidance and training for scanning staff on how to prioritise and  manage the workflow of scripts.
  

They also state that "some stakeholders raised concerns that modified scripts may have  been more likely to be missing and ultimately lost. Our investigations  did not find this to be the case. While around 1,000 scripts on coloured  paper were delayed during the scanning process, these scripts were not  missing, and the results were returned to schools shortly after the due  date. There is no evidence beyond this that modified scripts were more  likely to be lost than other scripts."

Let's hope for everyone's sake that the whole process goes a lot more smoothly this year!

Once we get past the hurdle of collecting/marking/reporting test and assessment results, the focus will move onto how the data are interpreted in 2023. For KS2 there's no reason why this should be done any differently to how it wasvt. Gggygvtyg t done in 2022,  with progress calculated from KS1 baseline assessment data. For KS1 we  do have a problem insofar as there's no EYFSP data for this cohort which  was in Reception in 2020-21; the DfE don't publish any official KS1  progress measures, but FFT won't be able to produce their usual KS1  progress measures this year (unless schools submitted data voluntarily).  
Looking further ahead to 2024 and 2025, the DfE have recently updated their Primary Accountability document with the following potentially worrying statement:
"As  primary tests and assessments were cancelled in academic years 2019/20  and 2020/21 due to COVID-19 disruption, there will be gaps in the prior  attainment data available to calculate primary progress measures in  future years. This will affect primary progress measures when the  relevant cohorts reach the end of KS2 in 2023/24 and 2024/25.
We will be doing further analytical work and testing as we explore whether there are alternative options for producing primary progress measures in the affected years, and will announce our approach in due course."

This  suggests that the DfE could try to calculate KS2 progress using a  different baseline, and the only options I can think of are EYFS or even  Phonics. I really hope they don't bother because I fear these measures  would -at best- be totally unreliable and ignored. At worst, they could  could cause chaos if they are used to formally judge school performance.  Again, let's hope common sense prevails and that they decide to just  report attainment figures, preferably presented alongside some  intelligent 'contextual data'. They could, for example produce a series  of measures which compare each school's attainment against that of  'similar schools' nationally. If they get this right, it could (in my  view) be a much better measure of performance than the current  very-flawed 'progress' methodology.  FFT's 'School's Like Yours' tool, which is currently only available for secondary schools, could be used as template for this approach.

Finally,  if you are losing sleep over how you are going to balance your budget  if the government pushes through its unfunded pay deal, fear not! Keep  an eye in the post for a package from the DfE which will officially contain some commemorative wildflower seeds for you to plant with your children to celebrate the coronation.  However, there's a rumour going round that these packets actually  contain 'magic beans' which will grow into your very own money-tree! 

I know that February is the shortest month, but it always  seems to come-and-go in the blink of an eye, especially after January -  which I am convinced has at least 50 days in it, despite what the  calendar says. So it's March already, which means that it's only a few  weeks until Easter - yay!

I'm sure that many of you will have completely lost interest in ASP by now, but some of you may have noticed that although the KS2 &  KS1 data was uploaded in December and January it did not include any  figures relating to the attainment and progress of Disadvantaged  children. The Release Timetable stated that this information would be  published in February, and sure enough it was uploaded yesterday - on  the last day of the month. However, if you do decide that it is worth having a look at your Disadvantaged data in ASP you need to be mindful of the sneaky and misleading way they present the information: it is probably the thing that causes the most confusion and annoyance in the whole system.

To  show the data for pupil groups you can click on the 'explore data in  detail' links which are below most of the headline tables and charts  (example below) or you can click on the subject links in the left-hand menus. Once  you've found the pupil group information you should now see that data  are presented for 'Disadvantaged' and 'Other' children, with 'national'  comparator data. However, the default national figures shown are not shown for Disadvantaged children, but for Other children (in both rows)! This is why, in the example above, the  percentage of children achieving the expected standard is shown as 80%  in both of the rows for Disadvantaged and Other children nationally. In  order to show a 'like-for-like' comparison which does show the actual  national figures for Disadvantaged children you need to click on the Switch Comparator button. This  will change the national data to show the figures for Disadvantaged and  Other groups. In this example, the national Disadvantaged expected  standard figure is now shown as 62%. The  arrival of the Disadvantaged data in ASP now also means that the  'filter' tool actually works (it didn't previously). So you can now use  it, for example, to only show the data for Disadvantaged children,  grouped by gender, SEN status etc etc. I'd  like to be able to tell you that ASP is now fully updated for the year,  but sadly that's still not the case. The data is still all  'provisional' and will supposedly be updated with 'final' data in March  or April. So if you have, for example, applied to have children who are  'recently arrived form overseas' removed from your KS2 figures, this  will not be reflected in ASP until the 'final' data is published.

OK, on to possibly more interesting topics.

The issue of Pupil Absence is continuing to develop into one of the biggest concerns currently facing schools and a Parliamentary Enguiry into persistent absence has just been launched . If you want to access comparative data to  benchmark your own school data here's another reminder that there is now  a dedicated DfE pupil attendance website that is updated every couple of weeks with data from 'participating  schools'. Alternatively, and possibly preferrably, if you subscribe to FFTAspire you can access national and regional benchmark attendance data in their Attendance Tracker.  The potential advanatage of the FFT data is that it is automatically  extracted from the MIS of all participating schools every week, rather  than relying on schools to manually upload data to the DfE system. I  also think it's easier to navigate the FFT system than the DfE website.
The  latest FFT national primary attendance figure (for the week ending 24th  Feb) was 94.8% and for Yorkshire & Humberside it was slightly  higher at 95.2%. The year-to-date figures were 93.6% for England and  93.8% for Y&H. Clearly, many schools are fighting an ongoing  post-pandemic battle to get some children (or their parents?) back into  good attendance habits and this is reflected in the Persistent Absence figures, which are currently running at 19.5% in the primary phase according to the DfE or 21% if you look at FFTAspire.
A short article on the main attendance-related issues facing schools was published in Schools Week a couple of days ago and FFTEducationDataLab have produced a couple of blogs on absence rates in the Spring Term and specifically on Persistent Absence, which highlights the fact that at primary phase it is the youngest year groups (Reception - Y2) that have the highest levels of persistent absence.  In contrast, in the secondary phase it is the older year groups  (Y9-Y11) that have the highest levels of persistent absence. The article  also shows that (unsurprisingly) Disadvantaged children have much  higher rates of persistent absence than 'Other' children, and it also  looks at the importance of distinguishing between children who are  identified as persistently absent because of 1 lengthy period of absence  as opposed to those who have numerous periods of absence (the latter  are the ones to be more concerned about because they are more likely to  continue to be persistently absent in the future).

A lot of schools use commercially available Standardised Tests as part of their regular approach to tracking pupils learning and  progress, and there is a school of thought that argues these tests  remove a lot of the subjectivity of teacher assessments and provide a  more accurate and consistent form of assessment. However, it's important to remember that they  aren't a 'magic bullet', and like everything else, can be affected by a  myriad of factors such as when they were administered, how they were  administered and how well the tests are aligned to the curriculum that  is being taught.
Another recently published study by EducationDataLab looks at the correlations of standardised tests over time, using data entered into the FFTAspire tracking system by  about 700 primary schools. It's quite a technical report, but the gist  of it is that although results in termly standardised tests are  generally strongly correlated from term to term, there is still a fair  amount of variation in pupils’ results, with the majority of pupils seeing their results changing by 5 or more standardised score points. This  raises important questions about how to interpret these test results at  an individual pupil level: if a child's score changes noticeably from  one test to another, does this reflect a genuine change in attainment,  or is it just 'natural' variation or something else? I don't think the  authors are arguing that these tests shouldn't be used, but it does  provide a useful reminder that no single method of assessment is fool  proof and that the best approach is to use a range of different  assessment methodologies in order to build up a comprehensive picture of  children's attainment and progress over time.

HOWEVER  - all of this assessment takes time and as we all know, the pig doesn't get any fatter from constant weighing! So, we need to ensure that  assessment remains streamlined and manageable. Even our Education  Secretary Gillian Keegan seems to agree (although her new-found enthusiasm for cutting teacher workload seems to be motivated by a half-hearted attempt at preventing further strike action). As ever, Teacher Tapp is keeping its finger on the pulse of staffroom opinion and they've just run a survey asking which unproductive tasks generate the most work.  'Data' does figure highly in the frustrations of classroom teachers,  but interestingly, the thing that wastes the most time for primary  teachers is unproductive marking! For senior leaders it's all  about unproductive admin, meetings and paperwork for OFSTED, governors,  the DfE, the LA , the MAT etc etc etc. It's almost as if the machinery  of accountability (which has been created in order to raise standards)  is actually getting in the way of the productive work that should  actually help to raise standards! Who'd have thunk it???

So, the long wait has finally come to an end - the Analyse School Performance system has finally been updated with 2022 data for KS1 and KS2. If any of you are still  interested in looking at it, I've put some instructions together for  downloading the main tables and charts in pdf format. You can find them  at the bottom of this email.

A much more  eagerly awaited data release (at least for nerds like me) that has  happened recently is the first big batch of detailed 2021 National Census data. ONS have been drip-feeding us with little snippets and headlines  for a while now, but this is the first big release of data that can be  viewed at a small-area level. If you've got a bit of spare time (see - I  can still do satire!) this interactive map tool https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps provides a really easy way of visualising and investigating the data down to a neighbourhood level. 

Now that the census data has been released it means that we can do a major update and refresh of the 'Beyond The School Gates' Demography Reports that we produce for schools. At the moment, a lot of the information in  these reports is based on data that was collected in 2019 or even 2011,  so it will be really useful to be able to refresh them with much more  recent data. It will take us a while to get our heads around all of the  new data but once we have re-built the reporting model I'll be  encouraging as many of you as possible to commission a new report for  your school.

The people at FFT have also been busy over the last few months and have just launched a new-look 'next generation' FFTAspire.  All of the old features of the system still seem to be there, but  they've been given a make-over and the user interface is quite  different. There are also some new features such as a Reading Assessment  Programme which is included as part of the standard subscription and  the target setting module appears to have had a fundamental re-design.  If you'd like to spend some time looking around the system with some  support from me, please feel free to get in touch to book a session.

Last Friday the online education magazine SchoolsWeek ran a provocative headline claiming that they had uncovered the 'broken link between exam results and ofsted ratings'.  I'm normally a bit of a fan of SchoolsWeek (mainly because they don't  have a paywall, unlike the TES) but this piece of 'research' appears to  be making big claims based on pretty thin evidence. For a start, they've  only looked at secondary schools, and even more crucially, the weaker  correlation between Progress 8 scores and Ofsted ratings that they are  reporting on is based on inspections that happened during the 2021-22  academic year (when the most recent data inspectors had available to  them was from 2019). So it's probably no surprise that there might have  been differences between old performance data and what inspectors were  seeing when they visited some schools. At the end of the article they  also admit that FFT have done their own analysis of inspections that  happened this autumn term and they've found that the correlation has  returned to pre-pandemic levels and that academic outcomes and OFSTED  judgements were “related, but not strongly related”. Which is probably  as it should be!

Today, SchoolsWeek have published an even more sensational piece of research that claims "female inspectors hand out harsher grades" for primary schools than their male colleagues. I've not had time to  look at this in detail but it does seem to be plausible that since the  new inspection framework is less data-driven and arguably more  'subjective', that it could lead to a situation where the  characteristics of the inspectors themselves can have an influence on  the judgements that are made.

This time of  year seems to be when a lot of academic researchers publish the findings  of the studies they've been undertaking. Here's a couple that have  caught my eye over the last few weeks, both of which are longitudinal  studies relating to educational outcomes and adult earnings:

• This DfE-commissioned report claims to be the first to examine the links between KS2 attainment and adult earnings.   It analyses the adult earnings of the first cohort to undertake KS2  tests and assessments (those born in 1985/86 and who are now in their  mid thirties). It has found a strong positive link between primary  school attainment and earnings: "A one standard deviation improvement in  KS2 test scores is estimated to be associated with a boost to earnings  of around 24% in the early thirties. This is equivalent to almost £7,000  at age 33. It is also associated with a 2-percentage point increase in  the likelihood of being employed at age 33."
  
• This report from the University of Durham and published by the DfE, claims that the link between attainment and later economic benefits can even be traced back to outcomes of children when they are in Reception.  They've done this by demonstrating the link between children's  attainment in their first year of education and their later GCSE  attainment, and then extrapolated that based on the well-established  link between GCSE attainment and adult earnings.
  

So if  you ever have cause to doubt the value of your life's-work (or have to  argue its value with someone else) we've now got more evidence to show  that it's all worthwhile (so long as your only measure of 'success' is  how much money someone earns, of course). 

  As some of you will already be aware, the ongoing and unexplained  delays in the release of primary-phase performance data in the Analysing School Performance system are causing some frustration. You'll remember that the OFSTED IDSRs  were published back in October, and that the accompanying data was  originally scheduled to be released at about the same time. However,  about a month ago the schedule was changed to 'November' and now it has  been changed to 'December'. Unfortunately, this means that I'm still  unable to write the 'IDSR analysis reports' that many of you have  requested this year. Once I've finished writing this email I will get  in touch with those of you that have requested a report to discuss our  options.

Thankfully, this unexpected gap in  my work schedule has been filled by several requests from 'new' schools  asking me to produce analysis reports based on the data that was  published in Perspective Lite back in July (i.e. at least 5 months before the DfE have managed to  publish their own data!). If you're reading this update for the first  time - welcome! These emails are sent to my valued customers in Leeds at  the start of every month and summarise all of the exciting news that  the world of education data has to offer - I hope you enjoy them.

I'm sure that many of you will have been eagerly awaiting the data release relating to the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check, which was published only a week late on 24th November and can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/multiplication-tables-check-attainment/2021-22.  This release contains national and regional level data, some of which  is broken down by pupil characteristics; school level data is not being  published at all and isn't even included in the OFSTED IDSRs or ASP, so  at the moment you will have to make your own comparisons of your  school's data against these national and local benchmarks. School's Week and the TES have both published articles which summarise the main headlines and are worth a read. Key points include:

• 27% of pupils nationally scored full marks (28% in Leeds)
  
• National Average Score was 19.8 out of 25 (19.9 in Leeds)
  
• Average score for Disadvantaged children was 17.9
  
• Boys average score (20.0) was slightly higher than girls (19.6)
  

I  was hoping that some clever whizz-kid would quickly produce a  spreadsheet that allows a school to enter their own data and then  automatically generates a load of pretty charts and tables showing how  they compare against national, but I haven't spotted one yet. If they do  I'll let you know how to get hold of it - and if nothing appears I  might have a go myself if there's sufficient demand.

Also published on 24th November was the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile 2022 results, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2021-to-2022.  If you have commissioned one of my reports or have looked in  Perspective Lite yourself, this won't tell you much you don't already  know, but it does provide official confirmation that attainment at the  foundation stage has been severely impacted by the pandemic:

• the national GLD figure for 2022 (65%) is substantially lower than the pre-pandemic figure of 72%
  
• The literacy AOL remains the main barrier to children achieving GLD (68% at expected standard this year)
  
• There is a 13%pt gap between the GLD figures for girls and boys
  
• There is a 20%pt gap between the GLD figures for FSM and non-FSM children
  
• The GLD figure for EAL children was 7%pts higher than for non-EAL
  

These last two bullet points underline the strong themes coming out of all of the primary-phase data this year, that White British children from Disadvantaged backgrounds have been much more affected by the disruptions to school-based learning caused by the pandemic.

The biggest shock in the batch of data that was released on 24th November was that the latest national exclusions data was published early!! The figure relate to the autumn term 2021-22 and can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england/2021-22-autumn-term . They reveal that - probably unsurprisngly - fixed term exclusions  have increased following a lull during the pandemic and reached the  highest level since 'current' records began in 2016. (I'm not sure why  their records only go back to 2016, I distinctly remember having to  produce exclusions statistics when I was a young and enthusiastic  number-cruncher back in the 1990s). Headlines include:

• Fixed term exclusion rate in primary schools was 0.5 per 100 pupils (Leeds 0.3)
  
• Fixed term exclusion rate in secondary schools was 4.5 per 100 pupils (Leeds 6.0)
  
• Permanent exclusions have also increased but haven't quite yet matched previous record-high figures
  
• Pupils eligible for free school meals were almost four times more likely  to be suspended, and around seven times more likely to be permanently  excluded than non-FSM pupils
  
• Schools Week did a short summary article: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pupil-suspensions-hit-six-year-high-after-pandemic-lull/
  

The lastest national attendance data was also published on 24th November and can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools. It confirms that absence rates are still relatively high compared to pre-pandemic. So far this academic year:

• the national absence rate in primary schools is 5.1% (i.e attendance was 94.5%). Leeds figure is also 5.1%.
  
• the national absence rate in secondary schools is 7.7% (i.e attendance was 92.3%). Leeds figure is 8.3%.
  

Just a reminder that if you want to access a whole host of attendance analysis for your school, you can get it by logging in to FFTAspire - assuming you have subscribed this year. This system will extract  absence data automatcially from your MIS and compare it against  aggregated data obtained from all other subscribing schools. Great for  governors and saves you loads of time doing it yourself!
FFT also released the KS2 Self-Evaluation dashboards early in November. Again, they are a useful starting point for  governors to look at how your data compares to national. If you want me  to spend some time discussing these with you and/or your governors I am available for bookings in the Spring Term!

The  data release schedule looks a bit quiter in December so I'm hoping that  DfE data monkeys will finally be able to prioritise the ASP update! The  only publication of real interest this month should be the KS2 Revised data for 2022 which is scheduled for release on 15th December. I'm assuming that this  means you will also receive (on or before that date) confirmation of  whether any applications for removing pupils from the official data have  been succesful. It's not as important as usual, because the performance tables won't be published this year, but it's always good to have your figures looking as high as possible!

Finally, as the festive season gets into full swing, I'd like to  wish you all the best in your preparations for the Christmas productions  which I'm sure you will be working tirelessly to ensure are a  glittering success for your children, parents (and staff!). I know that  for some of you, this period can be even more stressful than an OFSTED  inspection. I've decided to put on my own festive show this year; it's  an adaptation of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" but I've tweaked  the title to "Waiting for the DfE to publish some blummin data in ASP".  For those of you familiar with the original script, I'm going to play  both of the main parts, and the dialogue will include endless circular  conversations between me and myself on the subject of the DfE data  release schedule, which mysteriously keeps changing. Without  explanation. And never actually arrives. I've written to Nick Gibb and  asked him to play the part of the bully Pozzo who turns up unexpectedly  after a long absence, and I've told him that I'm sure I will be able to  find a local headteacher who is willing to take on the role of 'Lucky'  (Pozzo's slave) who is frequently punished for not having a sufficiently  knowledge-rich and evidence-based curriculum. 

Tickets  will go on sale next week and will be charged against a transparent  formula based on the square root of your budget deficit.

 So, another month and another round of ministerial appointments to  ponder - I wonder what Ofsted would make of a school that had 6  headteachers in 14 months?

• Kit Malthouse only  lasted 40 days as Secretary of State, which wasn't even as long as  James Cleverley (60 days), but I suppose he did manage to beat Michelle  Donelan (36 hours).
  
• The next taxi off the rank is Gillian  Keegan and the best thing about her is that she's not Kemi Badenoch. I  think she has more than a whiff of Dolores Umbridge about her: if you  haven't noticed the similarity yet just compare this pic of Gillian and this one of Dolores and try telling me I'm wrong. Thankfully, Gillian doesn't appear to be  as much of a fan of 'culture wars' as some of her colleagues but she has  previously made her dislike of trades unions very clear, and given the  highly likely prospect of industrial action in the near future we might  see some sparks flying quite soon. And unless she really has got a magic  wand up her sleeve I'm really not sure what she's going to be able to  do to resolve the rapidly escalating funding crisis that will be at the forefront of most of your minds at the moment.
  
• We  also have a 'new' cast of supporting characters at the Department: in a  rare piece of good news, Jonathan Gullis and Andrea Jenkyns have been  told to take themselves and their shared brain-cell back to backbenches -  and all before they had chance to do any real damage!
  
• They've  been replaced Nick Gibb and and Robert Halfon who - love them or loathe  them -  undeniably have plenty of relevant experience to justify their  appointments. Nick Gibb is now on his third 'go' at being Schools  Minister and has been the driving force behind the bulk of schools'  policy over the last 12 years, including: pushing the 'hard  accountability' agenda, the 'knowledge-rich' curriculum, SPAG, the  Phonics Screening Check, Reception Baseline, the Year 4 Multiplication  Check and the English Baccalaureate. Quite the CV!
  
• Robert  Halfon chaired the Education Select Committee for 5 years before his  appointment as the new Skills Minister. Interestingly, there could be a  bit of friction between him and Gibb: he was openly critical of Gibb's  handling of the exam debacle during the pandemic and he's also a big fan  of Apprenticeships and vocational qualifications, which really aren't  something that floats Nick's boat at all. So, there is a danger that  they could end up spending most of their time fighting each other  instead of addressing the many pressing issues that really require their  attention.
  

What has (or hasn't) been happening in the world of 'data':

• I've  already flagged up the fact that the OFSTED IDSRs for 2022 were sneaked  out on 19th October, and that they are as dull and uninformative as  ever. If you are suffering from insomnia and need something to send you  to sleep you can download yours from the ASP module via the DfE Sign-in portal. I provided more detailed instructions in my email of 20th October.
  
• Unfortunately,  the DfE still haven't updated the ASP module with 2022 data, which  makes the IDSRs even less useful because you can't cross-reference their  statements about performance against any actual performance figures.  According to the Release Timetable KS2 data should have been updated in  'October' with the other key stage data sets appearing in 'November'. So  unless you are expecting Ofsted to turn up iminently it might be  sensible to wait for a while before downloading your IDSR.
  
• I  don't know why the KS2 and KS1 data still haven't been updated in ASP  because the same basic data was published weeks ago by the DfE at a  national and LA level (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/key-stage-2-attainment-provisional-2022) and https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/phonics-screening-check-and-key-stage-1-assessments-england-2022.  These releases confirmed that not only has overall attainment fallen as  a result of the pandemic, but that the gaps between Disadvantaged and  Other children have widened considerably.
  
• In related news, the NfER published their independent review of the national Tutoring Programme,  wich has found that it failed to achieve its intended focus of  supporting disadvantaged children to catch up on lost learning - and  significantly increased the workload of school leaders.
  
• Finally, a blizzard of Assessment information for 2022/23 and beyond has been published, including the ARAs for KS1 and KS2 as well as access arrangements and a whole stack of other documents covering the engagement model, pre key stage standards and other assessment information.
  

Things to look out for in November:

• I'm  hoping that FFTAspire will be updated with 2022 data soon. There's no  release schedule that I've been able to spot but I assume that once ASP  has been updated FFT will follow-suit fairly swiftly.
  
• National and LA data for the Multiplication Tables Check are due to be published on 17th November. However, it appears that the only statistics they will be reporting will be the percentages of children achieving full marks in the test.
  
• National and LA data for EYFSP are due to be published on 24th November.
  

Hopefully  we'll get through this month without any more resignations or sackings  at the DfE - somebody needs to stay in post long enough to start sorting  out the mess. I am, however, keeping my fingers crossed that we will  have another new Home Secretary very soon! 

 The fact that the IDSRs were published yesterday may have escaped  your attention - it's not that much else is happening at the moment!  It's almost as if OFSTED are doing their best to make sure no one  notices at all, there has been no official announcement on their website  or through any other official communication channels as far as I am  aware.

The IDSRs themselves are almost as  inconspicuous and underwhelming as the publicity surrounding them: as  with 2019 they are just a series of bland statements, the majority of  which are likely to state "there is nothing to highlight..."

If you are keen to have a look at your IDSR you can view it via the ASP module in the DfE Sign-In portal https://services.signin.education.gov.uk/ although they haven't made that very easy either...

• Once you are logged in (assuming that goes smoothly) you should choose Analyse School Performance (ASP) from the My Services main menu
  
• In ASP click on the All Reports menu option
  
• Then click on 'Ofsted Inspection Summary Reports'
  
• Then click on "For the latest IDSR,  visit the Ofsted IDSR service"
  
• And log in again.  I think it should be the same username and password
  
• Once you are in the OFSTED website it seems to get a bit random. You will either:
  
•  immediately see the Contents of your IDSR, with the headings Areas of Interest, Absence, Suspensions etc...
  
• Or  you will just see your school name and address and not much else. If  this is the case, click on your school name and it should take you to  the IDSR.
  
• They haven't even made it easy to download the  IDSR as a pdf! Like most of OFSTEDs 'documents' these days they are  designed to be read on-screen in a web browser. They have provided 2  options near the top of the page to either "Print this page" or "Download this page".  If you choose to print I would advise to print to a pdf and play around  with the page settings to try get it to look as readable as possible.  If you choose to download the page it will save a copy of the webpage in  .html format which can be viewed off line.
  

HOWEVER -  you may want to delay going through this rigmarole for a while, at  least until the DfE get round to updating the ASP system with 2022 data!  This usually happens before the IDSRs are released but for some reason  that I don't understand it's the other way around this time. With only  the IDSR, all you will be told (for example) is that "There is nothing to highlight for key stage 2 progress in reading in 2022" without  any actual data to reference that statement against. Hopefully the ASP  system will also be updated very soon - I will let you know as soon as I  know.

 

It's October, which means that the Tables Checking Exercise has now *finally* closed. I know that many of you struggled to get on  to the website and I suspect that some of you never managed to get on at  all depsite many wasted hours of trying. If you do know or suspect that  the provisional data in the Tables Checking Exercise isn't accurate and  that you weren't able to get into the system to change it I would  definitely keep a record of what the correct information should be. If  you've commissioned an analysis report from me I'm happy to update it to  reflect the accurate information.

Provisional KS2 data is due to be published in the Analyse School Performance application this month (no specific date has been provided) and OFSTED have also said they will release their Inspection Data Summary Reports (IDSR) this month too. Both of these publications will use provisional data, so don't expect any changes that you did manage to make on the  Tables Checking Website to be reflected yet. This will have to wait  until at least December.


Apparently there are going to be a couple of notable omissions of data from the Primary IDSRs and ASP:

• There won't be any EYFSP data shown for 2022 or for any previous years. I'm not sure why, it  could be part of a general move towards taking the spotlight off that  assessment as a tool for accountability.
  
• There won't be any information about the Y4 Multiplication Tables Check. As far as I know, the only place this information will be released is here in November, and this will only be at a national and LA level, so it might be up to  you to do your own comparisons of your school level data against  national and local benchmarks.
  

The IDSR will include information on exclusions (albeit only up to 2020-21) and the DfE have released updated statutory guidance on governors' and leaders' accountability role in this area.

There's a few statistical releases coming up that might be of interest:

• Key Stage 2 attainment by phonics prior attainment.  This one's a bit 'niche' and is a hangover from the days of Nick Gibb  when he wanted to show that children who didn't achieve the standard in  phonics at KS1 also didn't achieve the standards at KS2. 
  
• Key Stage 1 and Phonics . This will include breakdowns at national and local authority level and by school and pupil characteristics.
  
• Pupil Attendance. This will be the 'single landing-site' for all your attendance data needs. Although FFT also do something quite nice too.
  
• Key Stage 4 Performance. I'm not sure what level of detail is going to be in this, might just be national headline figures.
  

This  one isn't related to attainment data but I do think it's important and I  haven't seen it publicised anyhwere else so I thought I'd flag it up  here. Apparently, schools will be asked for the first time in the January 2023 census to identify children who are young carers.  This group of children are one of the most challenged and vulnerable we  have, so personally I welcome this as a positive step forward. It will  however be another potentially tricky task for your staff, so you might  need to give some thought about how to go about ensuring you have this  information.


I've started to have a closer look at the intricacies and quirks of the KS2 progress data. I haven't yet come to any firm conclusions about how robust it is or isn't but I have spotted some quirks and anomalies:

• I've  seen schools that have an average progress score that is below zero  despite the fact that a majorityof their pupils have individual positive  progress scores. This has been caused by a small number of children  with very low negative progress scores, who have skewed the overall  figure for the school.
  
• The methodology used by the DfE does  include a 'cap' on very negative scores, but as with previous years,  this doesn't do the job it was intended to do. Some low-attaining  children can still generate individual progress scores lower than -20,  and this can easily be the difference between a school's overall  progress score being described as being 'below average' rather than  'average'.
  
• The methodology calculates a single prior  attainment 'point score' by combining attainment across the subjects at  KS1. I've seen examples of where this approach has led to very bizarre  progress scores for individual pupils who have unusual prior attainment  progress profiles across the subjects. For example, a child who was  assessed at PKF in Writing at KS1 and who went on to be assessed as  Working Towards in Writing at KS2 recieved a negative progress score  because they did well in Maths at KS1. (Conversely, this child also  received a very high progress score in Maths, because their prior  attainment in Writing was very low).
  

Onto  the wider world (if you can bear to read about it). Since my last  update, we have been treated to a whole new ministerial team at the DfE:

• Our  new Secretary of State is Kit Malthouse. He initially comes across as a  genial bumbling uncle, but will show his true colours this week at the  Tory conference where he will promise to "reinvigorate the school's  revolution" started by Michael Gove and intervene “firmly” in  underperforming schools to “push” them into academy trusts. Apparently  he thinks that education has been the “big success story" of this  government's tenure. Just let that sink in for a minute. He's also a big  fan of expanding grammar schools because "parents like the choice";  completely ignoring the fact that it's the grammar schools not the  parents who do the choosing!
  
• Jonathan Gullis is the new  Minister for School Standards. If you haven't seen him before, next time  you watch any footage of the Hose of Commons look out for a shaven ape  in a cheap suit grunting aggressively and slapping his chest at the  Opposition benches - that'll be him. Apparently he was - for a short  time - a Geography teacher who "never smiled" and he admitted that his  students were “probably happy to see me go” when he left his job. He's  gone on record saying that "lefty-woke teachers" should be sacked for  criticising the government.
  
• Kelly Tolhurst has been  appointed as "minister for schools and childhood". Apparently her brief  includes “strategy for schools, including standards and selection”. The  allocation of responsbilities acros the department seems to be very  confused, with all three of the aforementioned having some direct  involvement with schools, plus another (Baroness Barran) who has  oversight of academies, governance, school capital funding, admissions  and safeguarding. It seems like another recipe for dither, delay and  inaction as far as I can see. The only positive is that it looks like  schools won't have to suffer Andrea Jenkyns, who will be able to focus  her entire brain-cell on the FE and HE sector.
  

And  finally, although KamiKwazi and ThickLizzie have announced their first  U-turn this morning in relation to the abolition of the 45p income tax  bracket, but I doubt we will see them doing a U-turn any time soon on  the announcement that school budgets will be cut following the change to the NI rules. In fact, we will probably be  seeing plenty more public spending cuts being announced over the next  few weeks and months. All we can do is hope that these jokers will be  out of office before they do much more irriversible damage.  

  This is a very quick addional update to confirm a few things that  we were waiting for when I sent the original email at the end of last  week

You should have received an email from the DfE alerting you to the fact that the KS2 Tables Checking Exercise is now open until Friday 16th September. Although there won't be any  official Perfornace Tables this year, the data will still be shared with  Ofsted et al so it's worth making sure it is correct. Once you log into  this website you should be able to submit information about removals  etc and correct any wrong information that you see. If it's the same as  in previous years, you should also be able to download your progress  figures. For those of you that have already received an analysis report  from me, it would be great if you could compare the unofficial progress  figures I've used with the official DFE figures and let me know if they  are massively different!

The Primary Accountability technical documents were published yesterday and confirm that the  progress methodology has remained as close to previous years as was  possible, given the change in the KS1 'baseline' measures. The  assessment categories have been assigned point scores as follows:

• PKF: 4 points
  
• WTS: 6 points
  
• EXS: 8 points
  
• GDS: 10 points
  

A  child's KS1 'average point score' is calculated by averaging the  Reading and Writing point scores, and then averaging that result with  the Maths point score (i.e. Maths is double-weighted). There are 19  different Prior Attainment Groups (PAGs) and the average scaled score of  all the children in each PAG will be used as the yardstick to measure  each individual child's outcome. So for example the average scaled score  in Reading for PAG 16 (which includes all children with a KS1 APS of 8)  is 105.5, so if a child in this PAG scored 107 in the Reading test they  will get a progress score of +1.5. The BIG problem is that this single  PAG will include all children who achieved the expected standard in all  subjects, which I suspect could be more than a third of the national  cohort! More on this as I get my ahead around the implications.

Finally the provisional KS2 DfE statistical release has just been published - it looks as though all the attainment figures  in Perspective Lite were pretty much spot on, so no need to spend a lot  of time looking at that.

 

 I can't help thinking that for many of you, your top priorities  this year will be centered around working out whether it's going to be  possible to balance your budgets, keep your staff employed, your  buildings warm and your children fed - and that conversations about  performance data will have to take a back-seat. I'll still carry on  doing what I do, but I completely understand if you are less able to  engage this year.

I've spent most of the summer writing data analysis reports;  most of the schools that have requested a report have already received  theirs, but I've still got several to get done before the end of this  month, which I will send out as soon as I possibly can.
Whilst writing these reports, one key recurring theme has been evident in many schools’ figures: that the attainment of one specific pupil group (Disadvantaged White British children) appears to have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This group already had some of the poorest educational outcomes but the gaps between them and other pupils appear to have grown over the last two years, as borne out by the national figures. For example:

• In 2019 the gap between the percentage of Disadvantaged White British pupils achieving the combined expected standard at KS2 and the equivalent national figure was 17%pts, but this year it was 20%pts.
  
• At KS1, in 2019 the gap between the percentage of Disadvantaged White British pupils achieving the combined expected standard and the equivalent national figure was 24%pts, but this year it had grown to a massive 35%pts.
  

Clearly, this group is not equally distributed across schools and regions, and therefore different schools and areas will be disproportionately impacted. If your school serves a predominantly deprived White British community it is likely that your overall results will have been particularly  affected by this phenomenon, and even if your setting has a more diverse intake you  may notice that the in-school gaps are more obvious than before. (A  reminder: please don't share these figures on social media or websites  as they have been derived from data in Perspective Lite and the  powers-that-be get annoyed about public sharing).

On the subject of Perspective Lite, the LA emailed all primary schools a couple of days ago, alerting us to an issue with the Phonics data - specifically the Y2 're-take' figures. It appears that a problem with  the automated system for extracting data from schools' MIS has meant  that the autumn data has been extracted instead of the summer data. The  email says that this issue has affected 'some schools' but if the  problem is systemic I wouldn't be surprised if it affects most or all  schools, so I would also encourage you to check your Year 2 Phonics  results in the Pupil Results Report in Perspective Lite.  If this is  incorrect, please advise educ.pmi@leeds.gov.uk by Friday 9th September 2022.  If you are a school that has commissioned an analysis report from me  this year and you do find a problem, please let me know so that I can  update the Phonics section of your report once the issue is resolved.

Perspective Lite has provided unofficial KS2 progress measures,  which I have used in my reports with a cautionary note on their  reliability. As far as I am aware, these are the best available progress  measures at the moment, in the absence of anything from the DfE or  FFTAspire as yet. In a 'normal' year, the DfE would ususally be sending  out 'Tables Checking' information out to all primary schools (which  would include progress figures) but as far as I am aware this hasn't  happened yet and may not happen at all because Performance Tables aren't  being published this year. If you do receive a communication from the  DfE with any attainment or progress information please let me know.

Also 'missing in action' so far is the DfE's update to its 'Primary Accountability' technical document, which should provide details of how they have  calculated the progress measures this year. This document is eagerly  awaited by people like me because it should reveal the mysteries around  how they will address the inherent problems in calculating reliable  progress measures this year, now that we don't have the old point scores  at KS1 to use as a baseline. If and when this does appear, expect to  hear more on this issue over the course of the year. I'm crossing my  fingers and hoping that it will be released no later than the 6th of  September, which is when the detailed Key Stage 2 national data should  be published.

One data release that got a bit lost at the end of the year was Pupil Premium Allocations for 2022-23. If you are interested you can download a spreadsheet with  the allocations for every school in the country, from here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1084221/PP_allocations_2022_to_2023_Q1_June.ods

Upcoming data releases include:

• Key Stage 2 (6th September) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/national-curriculum-assessments-at-key-stage-2-2022-provisional
  
• KS1 & Phonics (6th October) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/phonics-screening-check-and-key-stage-1-assessments-2022
  
• Key Stage 4 (October) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/key-stage-4-performance-2022
  
• Foundation Stage (November) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2021-to-2022
  

Finally,  I'd like to do a little advert for a collaboration I'm involved in with  Mark Noblet and a few other independently-minded types, offering a  range of support to schools. The offer includes Coaching, support for  Leadership, Governance, Data Analysis, Writing, SEND & SENCO, and  EYFS. I've attached the Offer Pack to this email. My direct relationship  with all of my existing customers won't change; this is just about a  group of professionals helping each other to make contact with new  schools. If any of the wider services outlined in the pack are of  interest please do get in touch with Mark, but please continue to  contact me directly for support on data and SEF related matters.

That's  probably enough for now. Apologies to those of you who only read these  updates for the 'ranty bits' - I'm sure I'll be provided with plenty of  material once our new prime minister is in place and we get our 4th  Education Secretary in 12 months. Here's a 'quickie' - if you put "Mary  Elizabeth Truss" (her full name) into an angram generator these are some  of the suggestions (with added punctuation):

• Misery! Truth's ablaze!
  
• Hurts liberty. Amazes?
  
• Breezy salami-thrust.
  
• Bizarrely, hates smut.

I've had some queries about whether the Question Level Analysis functionality for KS2 tests will be available in ASP this year: according to the DfE's release timetable, this will be available some time in July 2022.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle last week when someone noticed that the KS1 'pass mark' in the reading and maths tests had been raised, but this turned out to be a red-herring; it was just a normal consequence of the tests being slightly easier this year. This adjustment should mean that the year-on-year standards are maintained at their usual level. 

 At the beginning of this week OFSTED announced that they would be removing Early Years Foundation Stage data from the IDSR, in light of the reforms to the Early Years Foundation Stage. There will also be no Foundation Stage data in ASP this year.  

Thank you to those schools that have so far requested an Early Analysis report, I've now had more than enough requests to keep me busy over the summer. If you haven't yet requested a report but want one please get in touch, but I'm afraid that any new requests from schools will have to wait until September for me to write their report.  

If you aren't requesting a report from me but want to get some headline information about your results compared to national, you could of course log into Perspective Lite yourself, or make use of the FFT Early Results Service, which has already opened for KS1, and which will open for KS2 soon. Obviously, these services are only open to schools that have subscribed to them for 2022-23. 

As mentioned at the start of the email, the DfE have just published data relating to the January 2022 school census. Here's a few headlines:      

• The total number of children in schools across England is now over 9 million. This year's figure is 88,000 higher than last year and is - I would assume - the highest it's ever been.     
• The overall percentage of pupils who are eligible for Free School Meals has risen from 20.8% in 2021 to 22.5 in 2022. FSM eligibility was rising prior to the pandemic, but the rate of increase has accelerated over the last couple of years. The figure for Yorkshire and Humberside is 24.8% and in Leeds it is 24.9%.     
• Rates of free school meals eligibility in 2022 were highest among pupils in the Traveller of Irish heritage ethnic group (63.3%) and Gypsy/Roma ethnic group (51.9%). Rates were lowest among pupils of Indian (7.5%) and Chinese ethnic groups (7.8%).      
• The overall percentage of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds is 34.5%, up from 33.6%. The figure for primary schools is 34.8% (up from 33.9 in 2020/21).     
• 19.5% of pupils were recorded as having a first language known or believed to be other than English, a small increase from the 2020/21 figure of 19.3%. In primary schools, the percentage recorded as other than English has increased slightly from 20.9% to 21.2%.     
• 1.6 million infant pupils were recorded as taking a free school meal on census day, of which almost 1.3 million are not normally eligible for FSM through the criteria above and received them under the Universal Infant FSM policy. The proportion of infant pupils taking a free school meal on census day rose to a peak of 88% in 2019 and has since fallen to 85% in 2022.   

And finally, you'd be disappointed if I didn't mention the latest political goings-on. Obviously, I would have liked to have seen the back of the blond buffoon this week, but it's surely only a matter of time before his regime of misrule comes to an end. My current bet is that it will 'all be over by Christmas' for Johnson, but I am aware that this phrase has been used naively before. While Johnson remains in office, we can be pretty sure that this government will continue to lurch from one crisis and controversy to another, incapable of addressing any of the serious issues that need to be tackled. This means we will probably see more delays in the implementation of existing policies and strategies, such as the recent announcement that the national funding formula won't now be fully implemented until at least 2027, and a complete inability to tackle problems such as the impending crisis facing Free School Meals. Meanwhile, the DfE continues to tie itself and schools in knots in order to find a way to hit its targets for the tutoring programme, and their latest plan for 'coasting schools' is being criticised by pretty much everyone that has the energy to read it. I'm afraid that we are probably going to have to put up with this kind of thing until some adults are actually allowed to start running the country. 

As is often the case, this time of year is fairly quiet in terms of data 'news' because everyone is busy preparing to administer the statutory tests and assessments. However, just when I thought I wouldn't have anything to talk about in this month's update, Mr Zahawi has come to my rescue by announcing a brand-new addition to the performance table data which will be published in the autumn term. Huzzah! 

Yesterday, you should have received an email from our beloved SoS providing details of the plan to publish data relating to individual schools' use of National Tutoring Programme funding. Apart from the fact that the timing of this announcement contravenes the DfE's staff well-being charter (which states that governmental publications relating to schools will only be published during working hours), this plan appears to be a pretty shameless attempt to shift the blame for the failure of the programme onto schools. If you were lucky enough to actually have the day-off yesterday and missed the reaction to this announcement, you can catch up with it all in articles in TES, SchoolsWeek and The Mirror. The announcement also includes the threat to share this information with Ofsted, but I've not seen any response to this from Ofsted themselves and it will be interesting to see whether this new data will be included in the IDSR, the template for which will probably have already been agreed and approved. There could therefore be systemic challenges to including it in the official accountability data used to inform inspections. As ever, we can't be sure whether this announcement will actually become a reality; it's a long time until autumn and it may well turn out to be another distraction that never sees the light of day.  

I'm really pleased to have contributed a little bit of the content for, and got a mention in,  Parklands A school built on love By: Chris Dyson , which has just been published and is racing up the 'Best Sellers' charts! Make sure you get your copy ordered while stocks last!

Nadim Zahawi is clearly convinced that the pandemic is over, because while many of you have been desperately trying to find enough teachers to cover your classes, the DfE have spent the last week or so publishing a slew of papers, reports and announcements - all as if the situation in schools is completely back to normal.  

The 'biggy' was supposed to be the Schools White Paper whose strap-line proudly declares that it will deliver "Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child". However, the more you dig into the detail, the more it becomes apparent that it is an underwhelming victory of style over substance, which puts me in mind of the old American expression: 'you can put lipstick on a pig and call it a lady, but it's still a pig'. A lot has already been written about the White Paper so I won't dwell on it too much, but here's a link to a good summary article from SchoolsWeek.  

One of the announcements in the White Paper that attracted the most attention was the implausibly ambitious target for 90 per cent of children by 2030 leaving primary school with the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. This had already been announced a month earlier in the Levelling Up White Paper and I discussed it in last month's update, so I won't bother going over that again in detail. In short, my opinion is that it's unachievable and Zahawi knows it, but he also knows he won't be SoS for Education in 2030, so he doesn't care.  

The most depressing thing about all of the announcements and initiatives in the White Paper is that they aren't backed up with enough funding (or in many cases no funding at all), and Zahawi was rightly hauled over the coals when he did the TV rounds on Monday for the fact that school funding is only set to return to 2010 levels by 2024. As ever, there was a huge quantity of distracting 'dead cats' being thrown about, such as the announcement that all schools will be required to be open for 32.5 hours per week, and the classic "if your child falls behind we'll make schools intervene to help them catch up". All of these headlines are designed to play to the prejudices of Daily Mail readers who think that teachers are part-timers who just babysit their kids. I think they're also designed as covering-fire to prevent people from noticing the stuff that the the government is embarrased about, such as the admission of the 'systemic flaws' in their approach to the academisation of schools, that they are unlikley to achieve their target of academising all schools by 2030, and that they are now having to rope in Local Authorities to sort out a lot of the mess they've created, especially around admissions, financial management and inclusion. On page 46 of the SWP they even state "the system that has evolved over the past decade is messy and often confusing" - remind me who has been in power over the last decade!!!  

Talking of inclusion, the DfE published a Green Paper covering the SEN review. The paper is titled “Right support, right place, right time”, which is somewhat ironic because the review was originally launched over two years ago in 2019, and there's still no clear timetable for actually implementing any of the proposed changes. There are a lot of proposals that I'm not sufficiently qualified to have a conisdered opinion on, but one that is 'up my street' is the proposal to update the published school league tables with contextual information about schools alongside their results data. The intention of this is to "make it easier to recognise schools that are doing well for children with SEND". In principle this has got to be a good thing, but we will have to wait and see if it actually happens, and whether it makes any sense when it does appear.  

One announcement that you may have missed is the publication of statutory assessment dates for 2023 & 2024 which came out on March 21st. This caused a bit of consternation and debate because it confirms the DfE's intention to continue with KS1 assessments despite the fact that the first cohort to undertake the Reception Baseline Assessment will reach the end of KS1 in 2024. The whole point of the RBA was to make the KS1 'baseline' for progress redundant, and a lot of people were therefore expecting KS1 assessments to end after 2023. However, I seem to remember that the DfE did at some point say that there would be one year of 'overlap' to allow them to check and confirm that the RBA data is sufficiently robust to allow the replacement of the old KS1-2 progress measures with Reception-KS2 progress measures. I wouldn't be surprised if they persist with running both assessments for a number of years - after all - it's not much extra work for them, is it?!?  

On the 25th March the DfE published an update relating to how they will calculate and use the 2022 KS2 performance measures. This document confirms that there will be 'no adaptations' to the tests and assessments; they will cover the 'full curriulum' and the expected standards will 'remain the same' as in previous years. On that basis I think we can all be fairly confident that attainment will be a lot lower than in 2019. The DfE say they recognise the 'uneven impact on schools of the pandemic' and that they want to use the performance data appropriately; to this effect they have confirmed that there will be no public performance tables. They will however share the data with schools, Trusts, LAs - and crucially - Ofsted. Despite their assurances that this information will be used cautiously and will be presented alongside 'caveats', I'm sure this news will be very worrying for a lot of headteachers.   

While it would be reasonable to expect a big dip in national attainment this year, the progress measures (which are a 'relative' measure) should still look broadly similar to previous years. The big question (which was originally going to be answered in 2020) is how they will be calculated, because this is the first cohort to be tested at KS2 who were assessed without levels at KS1 . The DfE state that they have done some work to 'model how we might create prior attainment groups for the 2021/22 measures. This work suggests that we will be able to keep the methodology broadly similar to the one we have used in previous years. We anticipate that the changes to the baseline are likely to have minimal impact on the overall distribution of primary progress scores." I am sceptical about this, because of the unavoidable fact that a very large proportion of children nationally (probably about a third) will have been assessed as achieiving the expected standard in all three subjects at KS1, and all of them will have to be grouped together for prior attainment purposes. The progress measures might look very similar to previous years when they are published, but in my view their reliability and veracity will be even more questionable than in previous years. I'm sure I will have more to say about this in the autumn term!  

The next item is only tangentially relevant to school data issues, but I wasn't previously aware of it, and I think it's potentially important. On 24th March an education minister announced the permanent extension of Free School Meal eligibility to children of families who have no access to public funds. This is obviously welcome news, as these will be some of the most vulnerable children and families in society. If I was that minister I would have been very proudly showing off about this, but it is interesting to see how this announcement was made without fanfare, presumably because it won't play well with the Conservatives' "core vote". The other implication of the minimal publicity is that the families concerned might not be aware that they can claim FSM and that schools might not be aware either. It's definitely a good idea for schools to encourage these families to register for FSM as you will then be able to get PP funding, and your official 'Disadvantaged' percentages will also increase. Apparently the DfE will be publishing guidance on how to check and validate eligibility for NRPF families "shortly" - keep an eye out for it!  

The last piece of news I want to alert you to is that FFT have now added Persistent Absence figures to their Attendance Tracker system. I know that a lot of you are concerned about the big increase in the numbers of children who will be counted as persistent absentees, but be assured, you're not on your own: the FFT's unofficial 'national' persistent absentee figure for primary schools is currently being reported as 26% (that's about three times as large as the pre-pandemic national figure).