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February 2025

If you've had a chance to look at any news today (Feb 3rd) then you will already know that OFSTED released its proposals for the changes to school inspections, along with the draft report cards that will be published once schools have been inspected, and they have launched a consultation which runs from now until 28th April.  To be honest, it would have been a surprise if these announcements had  been greeted with general approval, but I don't think I've spotted  anyone coming out to say that they like what they've seen so far.

At the front of the queue of critics are the unions, with the NEU being particularly vociferous. They've definitely got a point: the old one-word judgements were supposedly scrapped in response to concerns  about the high-stakes accountability system which was causing school  leaders to fear for their futures if inspections didn't go their way.  But today Bridget Phillipson is also launching a consultation on reforming the school accountability system, which runs alongside the OFSTED consultation and begins by stating that "our propsed accountability framework will be more demanding" and goes on to say - quite ominously - that "we  should always remember that education is high stakes for the pupils who go through it, and they are entitled to a system which expects and  ensures high standards." So, on that evidence, it doesn't appear  that either of these proposals are primarily aimed at reducing the levels of stress that many school leaders feel in the run-up to  inspections (and that an unfortunate few feel even more severely, following the inspection).

There's been  several newspaper articles released already today which summarise the  OFSTED proposals, so I won't bother trying to re-invent the wheel. Here are a selection:

  • https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-school-report-cards-the-11-key-proposals/
  • https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-chief-its-time-to-reset-the-bar-to-raise-standards/
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20gkmy6k74o
  • https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/ofsted-report-cards-school-inspection-everything-you-need-know

As  you'd expect, I'm particularly interested in the areas of the new  framework that have more of a 'data' focus, which unsurprisingly are  'Achievement' and 'Attendance'. My main concern is whether we could end  up going back to the 'bad old days' when some schools felt that they  were doomed before the inspection even happened because aspects of their  data (and how it was interpeted by OFSTED) meant that it was almost  impossible to be 'Good'. And from what I've seen so far, I am worried that the same could happen again.
My initial interpretation of the proposed inspection methodology is that if any of the Evaluation Areas (there are 9-11 depending on the type of school) are judged to be "causing concern" (the lowest outcome on their 5-point scale)  then the only possible outcomes for the school are "requires  significant improvement" or "special measures": the flowchart (Figure 1 on the consultation page) sets out the criteria for placing schools into a category of concern. Achievement and  Attendance are two of the evaluation areas, so this immediately raises  the prospect of schools being placed into a category of concern purely based on data threshold measures.The proposed inspection toolkit provides the detail of what inspectors will be looking for in these areas:

  • For the Achievement in national tests & examinations Evaluation Area it looks as though they might have built in an 'escape-route', because for this area they don't use the standard  'causing concern' to 'exemplary' descriptors in the column headers; instead they go with 'well below average' to 'well above average'. So, this might mean that a school can't be placed into a category of concern purely based on attainment data.
  • However, they don't appear to have been quite as clever for Attendance. This section states that one of the criteria for 'Causing Concern' is "Attendance is consistently low for all pupils or for groups of pupils and shows little sign of sustained improvement". They haven't said how they are going to define 'Low' attendance, but presumably they are going to have to apply some clear thresholds, below which some schools will inevitably fall, and who will therefore end up being placed into a category of concern solely for their attendance figures. This is clearly going to be a worry for schools that struggle with attendance, through no fault of their own.

I  need to spend more time looking into this, but it does strike me as a  particularly problematic aspect of the proposals, and it makes me wonder  how well it's all been thought-through. I've no idea how much notice OFSTED will take of the responses to their consultation,  but I'm going to try to take the time submit some feedback, and it  might be useful for you to do the same once you've had a chance to read  the and digest the detail of the proposals.

Another important thing to note is that these report cards are only going to be published after an inspection (i.e. they will replace existing inspection reports). I can't see anything in the OFSTED proposals about whether they intend to make changes to the current IDSRs (which are published for all schools every year and are intended to help prepare for inspection) but you'd think that  these would have to at least be updated to inform the new methodology.  We will have to wait and see what happens to the IDSRs, but the DfE's  proposed accountability reforms talk about the development of School Profiles which they say will provide “one stop shop” for information about  performance for a range of audiences. The idea is that these will be  produced for all schools every year and will incorporate  the OFSTED report cards, along with a host of additional information.  The proposals are all very vague and have a strong whiff of  'vapour-ware' so I'm not expecting these profiles to appear any time  soon.

One final announcement that came out this morning is the publication of the list of the first 20 Regional Improvement for Standards & Excellence (RISE) advisers to be appointed. 17 of them are from the Academy sector, so this doesn't lend any weight to the accusations that the government has declared war on Academies with the reforms it is proposing in the School's Bill.

That  was all a bit heavy, so you'll be releaved to hear that there's nothing  else significant to report in the way of other assessment & data  related news. We are STILL waiting for the MTC and revised KS2 data to  be uploaded into Perspective Lite, so I'm unfortunately still unable to  update the Analysis Reports. I will continue to check, but it's going to  become a pretty pointless exercise if we have to wait much longer!

I  can't resist finishing this month's missive with one of my customary digs at our former Schools Minister, Nick Gibb. In a speech at a recent  BETT Conference he had the gall to say “I believe that there are some children who need a very specialist  approach to how they’re taught because of their special needs, and I  think we have let down thousands of those children in the way that we teach them in our schools"  without mentioning the fact that he had been in charge of the school  system for most of the last 15 years and that he should surely bear  responsibility for many of its current failings. More evidence of the  fact that accountability doesn't seem to apply to everyone. 

January 2025

Unfortunately, this month's update is going to have to start with a repeat from the January 2024 email because, once again, the DfE are being slow to update their data systems. Despite the KS2 performance tables being released a month ago, we still haven't got the revised KS2 data in ASP, and they also haven't yet passed on that data to  Perspective Lite and FFTAspire. This means that I am currently unable to  make the updates to the Early Analysis Reports that some of you have  requested.
Moreover, although the MTC data has been available for individual schools in ASP for some time, it still hasn't found it's way to Perspective Lite yet, so that section of your reports will also have to continue to wait to be updated. It's now less than 6 months until the next round of MTCs have to be administered and I'm starting to wonder whether we will get last year's data before then!

There's very little in the way of new information from the Standards & Testing Agency that's worthy of mention but there was something in their latest email  that caught my eye. There was a "reminder" of changes to the way in  which absent pupils are handled in the KS2 tests. I haven't  previously spotted anything about this, I can't find any mention of it  in any other publications and the article ends by saying that more  details will be published in March, so I'm not convinced that 'reminder'  is the correct description. Anyway, here's the details:

  • DfE have changed the way they treat absences in the KS2 tests, to support  pupils who cannot sit all tests due to unavoidable circumstances. 
  • Historically,  where a pupil was absent for a test in a subject with multiple test  papers and unable to take it using a timetable variation, they would  receive an outcome of ‘A’ (absent) for the entire subject.
  • From  now on (i.e. from 2025 onwards) if  a pupil is absent for one test paper but receives enough raw marks in  the remaining papers to meet the expected standard, they will receive an  outcome of ‘AS’ (at standard). If the pupil does not achieve enough raw  marks, they will receive an outcome of ‘A’ (absent). No scaled score  will be provided in either scenario.
  • Apparently, DfE have also applied this change and updated pupil data retroactively for  the academic year 2023 to 2024. The updated data will not be visible on  the PAG, but is reflected in the revised school-level data published by DfE on Thursday 12 December.
  • Apparently, they are also contacting all schools with affected pupils directly, but there is no action for schools to take.
  • The official test administration guidance doesn't currently appear to reflect this change, but the STA article states that it will be updated in March 2025.
  • My  interpretation of this change is that there are no circumstances in  which this could have a negative impact on your overall school  performance data, but it could (in a very small number of cases) improve  the the published figures for the school.

The big news in the wider world of education is that the government's Children's Wellbeing & Schools Bill passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons last week, despite an attempt by the  Conservative Party to scupper it, by forcing a vote on an amendment  (which proposed a national inquiry into grooming gangs) that if passed  would have killed the entire Bill. This is a BIG Bill which pushes  forward a total of 39 policies which will have a far-reaching impact on our school system. Some of these policies (e.g. those affecting academy freedoms) will be popular with some and not with others, but there are also some policies which I think nearly all people would agree are well-overdue and need to be implemented as soon as possible. These include:

  • Compulsory registers for children 'not in school'.  These are something that a lot of LAs (including Leeds) have been  trying to maintain for many years, with limited success. Hopefully, the  fact that they should now become a legal requirement will mean that the  teams responsible for them will be provided with the funding and  staffing they need to maintain them effectively.
  • Greater regulation of home schooling.  This should make it harder for parents to remove children from school  for nefarious reasons, as well as making it more difficult for  unscrupulous schools to use 'home-schooling' as a back-door for  off-rolling unwanted pupils.
  • Stronger controls over and monitoring of 'private' schools and crackdown on 'illegal' schools'.  We are all aware of the explosion in the numbers of private educational  settings and unregistered settings over recent years, and the growing  numbers of children who are moved from mainstream schools into these  settings. There are a host of potential safeguarding issues which need  to be addressed, as well as concerns about the quality of education that  children placed in these settings receive.
  • A Single Unique Identifier to be introduced across multiple data sets. "But we already have the  UPN!" I hear some of you cry. The problem that we have always had with  the UPN is that it isn't actually Unique(!!) in several ways: it's only  used within the state school sector and doesn't extend to early  years settings, private schools, FE settings or HE settings, let alone  the NHS, social care and the police. This makes the sharing of data  across different agencies incredibly difficult and allows children to  get easily lost in the system. The UPN isn't even fully unique within the state school system, for example some of you may have had to deal  with problems caused by temporary UPNs being issued, leading to children  ending up with multiple UPNs. This is going to be a very difficult  change to get right, and one which will probably cause some serious  headaches along the way. But if it helps to reduce harm and ultimately  save lives, it's something that we all should be supporting and working  hard to implement.

In less positive news, there's more  evidence of the DfE looking for ways to reduce expenditure, such as  today's announcement that Computing Hubs are to be scrapped, while Language Hubs are to be scaled back.  This comes on the back of a previous decision to close down the Science  Hubs and to end funding for the Latin Excellence Programme ("Vae mihi!"). A Schools Week investigation last year found nearly £700 million had  been spent on running 13 hubs.  

 

december 2024

We've been provided with some more detail on the DfE's proposed 'intervention model'  for schools deemed to be in need of support. Of course, it  acronym-tastic and colour-coded to boot: the new system will be led by  Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams, who will broker support at three different levels: Universal support for well-performing schools (green), Targeted support (amber) or Intervention (red). However, there still seems to be a significant lack of detail (or even confusion) around who will decide which schools fall into which categories (DfE or OFSTED?) who will pay for the support and who will provide it. There does seem to be more of an emphasis on the role  of LAs than there has been in recent years, but LAs have been starved of  funding and had their staffing stripped to the bone, so surely there  have got to be doubts around their capacity to undertake this work  effectively in their current state? In fact, the biggest LA in the  country (Kent) has already held up it's hands and publicly admitted that  it can't afford to provide school improvement support (and I'm sure many others are in exactly the same position or worse) so  it seems that there will have to be a lot more thinking done and money  provided before this new system can get off the ground (supposedly by  September 2025).

Meanwhile, OFSTED  appear determined not to be outdone by the DfE's RAG-rated colour scheme and have dusted off their old B&Q paint charts to design their new Report Cards.  If the rumours are correct then we're going to have to get our heads  around a veritable rainbow of categories & judgements, the like of  which hasn't been seen since the  halcyon days of RAISEOnline.  Personally, I can't wait for schools to be able to boast about being  'purple in all areas' or to hear headteachers muttering about their  'opportunities to thrive' being a worrying shade of dark umber.
I'm also rubbing my hands with absolute glee at the prospect of Ofsted reintroducing a stronger emphasis on statutory outcomes' in the Report Cards. I'm sure that we all agree that it's been way too difficult over the last few  years for us to understand an inspection framework that attempts to  evaluate the quality of education without resorting to crude benchmarks  of attainment, and I'm equally sure that it will come as a blessed relief to know that as long as we can all be above average, everything will be fine. Honest.

We  could be forgiven for wondering whether OFSTED and the DfE are actually  talking to each other at all, or just coming up with these weird and  wonderful proposals in complete isolation from each other. Bridget Philipson's speech to school leaders a few weeks ago, which went heavy on 'happiness, wellbeing & inclusion' and which was quite disparaging about the negative effects of focussing too hard on examination results does seem to be at odds with OFSTED's re-discovered enthusiaism for judging schools on exactly that.
It's also interesting to note the disconnect within government: Wes Streeting at the Department of Health appears to be very keen on targets and  'naming and shaming'. Let's hope there isn't a reshuffle anytime soon - I  don't think he'd be very popular with the education unions.

Hopefully, if you wanted to contribute to the consultation on the DfE's Curriculum & Assessment Review you have already done so, because it has now ended. One organisation  that definitely took the opportunity to make their feelings known was  the NAHT, who didn't just provide some feedback in privacy, but also shared it with the TES. They stated that multiplication  tables check, the phonics screening check and key stage 2 grammar,  punctuation and spelling tests are all “unnecessary and should be  scrapped”. They also think that the national curriculum and qualification specifications are overcrowded, and that “Measures such as the EBacc must be scrapped and  Progress 8 reformed if the government truly wants to encourage  curriculum breadth and take up of the creative arts.”
Whenever  the Review does come up with some recommendations (and whatever they  are) it's going to take a while to get them agreed and even longer to  get them inplemented. This means that if the DfE & OFSTED do press  ahead with their rapid implementation timescales for school support,  Report Cards and inspection frameworks, they are all going to have to be  reviewed and adapted again at a later date, to reflect any changes to Curriculum & Assessment.

Finally,  over the last month there has been a constant stream of reports and  research coming from various third sector organisations which lay-bare  the shocking extent of poverty in this country, how it is impacting our  children's lives, and the knock-on impacts for schools. Here's a few  examples:

  • More than one in three children in poverty as UK deprivation hits record high (Social Metrics Commission)
  • More than 1.4 million emergency food parcels distributed in the pat six months (Trussel Trust)
  • Thousands of migrants are living in poverty as they can’t access benefits (London Trust)
  • Recommendations for closing the attainment gap for Disadvantaged children (Sutton Trust)
  • Food poverty in the Early Years (Education Policy Institute)
  • The persistent Disadvantage attainment gap (Education Policy Institute)

After  reading all of the above, my Christmas wish is for the government to concentrate harder on tackling the root cause of nearly all of the  problems in our education system (poverty), rather than obsessing  about school performance and how to measure it.

 

November 2024

  

 Let's start with a status update on what is and isn't currently available in Analyse School Performance (ASP) and the OFSTED Inspection Data Summary Reports (IDSRs), both of which are accessed via the DFE Sign-in portal:

  • IDSRs were updated on 10th October and now have data relating to 2024 KS2  & Phonics attainment and 'characteristic & contextual' data  based on the 2024 census. Staffing data remains based on 22/23 data,  absence data is for 23/24 Autumn term only, and exclusions data is for  22/23. The secondary school release is scheduled for this month.  Two-term absence data and MTC data are both scheduled for December. The  level of information provided in the IDSRs this year seems even more  'streamlined' than before; a few schools have asked me to write the  'IDSR Analysis' reports that I have produced in previous years but I'm  not convinced it's worth it anymore and I'm suggesting that I pop into  school instead to talk through the IDSRs instead (which is cheaper for  the school and less time consuming for me). I've got some visits booked  in already but if you were expecting a report and I haven't been in  touch yet please feel free to phone or email me to discuss.
  • ASP has just been updated with KS2 data for 2024, but Phonics hasn't (it  was scheduled for October). Secondary Phase data is scheduled for  November and MTC data for December. The format and functionality of APS  appears to be unchanged, the only thing that is obviously different is  the absence of any KS1-2 progress analyses. Just a reminder that the QLA  section (arguably the most useful part of the system) has had 2024 data  in it since July!

Talking of data release schedules and delays, we found out just before half term that the publication of the Key Stage 4 Performance Tables will be delayed this year. Apparently this delay was due to problems with data  submitted by one of the Exam Boards (Pearson) rather than due to any  direct incomptence by the DfE, although I have also seen some secondary  colleagues complaining on social media about experiencing severe  problems with logging into the Tables Checking portal. The deadline for  schools to complete the checking of their data has been extended to 7th  November.

There hasn't been a great deal of  news coming from the Standards & Testing Agency in recent weeks,  the biggest announcement was that they have decided to scrap the 'opt-out' arrangement for schools receiving paper copies of the optional KS1 SATs papers.  For this year, schools that want to administer the tests will have to  download electronic copies of the papers from the Assessment gateway  from May 1st. This decision has been widely welcomed given the fact that  it cost £1.6 million last year, the amount of paper used is scary to  think about, and there is no way of knowing how many schools actually  used the tests either. However, it does mean that schools who do want to  continue with the KS1 tests will have to print their own, which shifts  the costs on to them.

On the subject of end-of-year / key stage tests and whether or not it's worth doing them, FFTEducationDatalab have just published a study which is quite relevant to that debate. It  focuses on how valuable tests are in predicting outcomes at the end of  the secondary phase, but the key findings and recommendations are  probably applicable to primary schools too. In short, the answer appears  to be 'sort of'. To paraphrase the report: 'tests are more accurate  predictors in Maths than they are in English', 'don't base your  predictions on just the most recent test' and/but 'don't do tests too  often'.

Moving away from 'data' and into the wider world of education, here's what's caught my eye recently:

The Curriculum & Assessment Review 'Roadshow' events are all hapening in November. There are some online  events and the nearest 'live' event to us is in Doncaster on the 27th.  You can register for events here.

There's some good news about the success of a trial project aimed at identifying children who are eligible for FSM but who are unregistered, and automatically enrolling them. The trial scheme is being run by the Fix Our Food project and their website has a form you can complete in order to obtain an auto-enrollment toolkit and resources,  which may very well be worth getting your hands on. It is estimated  that there are around 470k eligible pupils nationally who are currently  unregistered; it's not just in the child's benefit to get them  registered, schools are missing out on valuable Pupil Premium funding if  eligible children aren't registered.

If  you want confirmation of an issue that you probably already suspected  was an increasingly severe problem, a recent survey has found that half of parents of pre-school children are not reading to them every day, following the pandemic, compared to two thirds in 2019. The full report from the National Literacy Trust can be found here.

Talking  of things that used to be better than they are now, The Institue for  Fiscal Studies has published a report that looks at the impact that the Sure Start programme had on youth misbehaviour, crime & contacts with social care. In short, it had a very significant impact. This follows a report early this year that Sure Start had significantly positive short & medium term impacts on educational attainment.  Personally, I hope that people within the new government are reading  these reports and are thinking about how they can resurrect the best  elements of the Sure Start programme, which in my view was one of the  best things to happen for deprived communities in recent decades.

The really big recent news has been the Budget and what it means for education.  Obviously, the headlines of the overall increase of £2.3billion in  schools funding including £1billion for SEND, and £6.7billion for  capital investment  (e.g. school building programme) are extremely  welcome. But is it going to be 'enough'? Rachel Reeves has allayed some  immediate fears about whether schools will have to foot the bill for the increased Employers NICs but there are still lots more unanswered questions. As this article by Sam Freedman points out, a lot of the additional funding is just going to be eaten  up by 'filling holes' left by the last government, such as the unfunded  pay award, Councils' huge SEND debt, and the backlog in school building.  This new money might pull a few heads back above the waterline for a  while but it's unlikely to get the leaks plugged and the ship sailing in  the right direction in the long term. We will have to wait and see what  happens over the next few years.

And while  the government has been splashing the cash in some places, it's been  taking it away in others. The newspaper headlines are being dominated by  the Budget announcement about VAT fees for independent schools (is that because the people who write the headlines in our newspapers  all send their kids to private schools??) but a week before the Budget  the DfE also announced that they were reviewing funding for 44 planned Free Schools ('review' usually ends up meaning 'cancellation'). DfE also recently announced that it's defunding some school maintenance projects due to 'irregularities' and on Friday it dropped the bombshell that it is scrapping the Academy Conversion Grant.  To be honest, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the independent  schools, Free Schools were always an expensive vanity project thought up  by Michael Gove, I'm all for making sure that public-money is spent  properly, and the current mess of a system we've got in terms of our  mixed economy of Academies/Maintained Schools really does need sorting  out; but all of these announcements point very clearly to the fact that  the DfE is desparately trying to save as much cash as possible so that  it can put it back into areas that it feels are more important and  productive.

 

october 2024

  

The release schedule for the OFSTED IDSRs has been published: Primary Phase reports are due out in October  (probably during half term) and the Secondary Phase reports are due in  November. Somewhat surprisingly, the Analyse School Performance  data release schedule is the same, with KS2 & Phonics due in October  and KS4 in November. It'll be great if the two systems are synchronised  this year, but it's never happened before (one has always lagged behind  the other by about a month) so we will have to wait with bated breath  to see if they get it right this time.

KS2 Question Level Analysis is already available in Analyse School Performance if you want to do some detailed investigation of your pupils' responses to the test questions. The DfE have also released updated provisional KS2 data at a national/regional/LA/ pupil group level here;  it doesn't contain any school level data but you could use it to  compare your own data against national benchmarks etc if you are doing  some self-evaluation and have missed out on one of my reports this year.

The KS2 ARA and the Phonics ARA for 2025 were both published this week. I can't say I've read them from  cover to cover but neither of them have an 'important changes' section  so I'm assuming they are the same as last year, with the dates updated  etc. Talking of key dates, SchoolsWeek have published a handy article  with all of the key assessment dates listed for SATS & Phonics here.

The fact that these ARAs have been published without any changes provides confirmation that the DfE's Curriculum & Assessment Review won't result in any changes to the statutory assessment framework until  at least 2026 (I doubt we'll see any changes until at least 2027 to be  honest). Just a reminder that anyone can contribute to the Reviews' Call for Evidence, which runs until 22nd November.

While DfE appear to be taking their time over C&A review, Ofsted seem to be in a mad rush to develop their new Report Cards; so much so, in fact, that they have unsurprisingly managed to annoy a few people. Some of the teaching unions are concerned about Ofsted 'reforming itself' and about the fact that they haven't been invited onto the reference  groups that have been set up. OFSTED have said that they intend to have  draft report cards ready to go out for consultation in January 2025, and  today there's been another announcement that Ofsted have awarded The National Children's Bureau a £90k contract to “conceptualise vulnerability and inclusion” in order to inform the development of the inclusion measures which will form a part of the new Report Cards. Again, this research is  intended to be done and dusted fairly swiftly (within 7 months). That  will take us to about Easter, so it looks as though they are still  aiming to have the report cards ready for use in Autumn 2025, when they  also intend to implement the new phase-sepcific frameworks as well.  That's quite a tight schedule, and government organisations are not  renowned for working effectively 'at pace'. Fingers crossed it doesn't  all go horribly wrong.

Finally, a couple of  ghouls who have regularly featured in these updates in the past have  re-appeared just to remind us that they are still capable of enraging  and amusing us. Nick Gibb crawled out from under his stone to give an interview/retrospective on his lengthy career as Schools Minister, and to promote the book he  is writing, which I'm sure will be out in time for you all to put it on  your Christmas wishlists. Some of his interview comments got me shouting  at my computer screen, particularly his view that any school that has  "45 per cent reading, writing and maths combined in a primary school, or  17 per cent achieving the Ebacc"  is "failing", "terrible" and  "unacceptable".  He clearly still has no concept of how schools'  context, as well as how they approach issues like inclusion, has an  impact on raw attainment measures. We can only be thankful that he's not  in charge of the new Ofsted report cards - I'm sure he will be as  unhappy about them as I am with him.

The other unwelcome returnee is the former MP, short-lived Education Minister, and now unemployed Jonathan Gullis,  who is very unhappy about his lack of success in applying for teaching  jobs since he lost his parliamentary seat in July. Of course, he's  blaming the 'woke agenda' for the fact that he's not even managed to  secure any interviews. Personally, I think it's probably more to do with  the fact that headteachers have had to spend the last 5 years watching  him behave like an over-excited baboon in the House of Commons, and that  they have read his Wikipedia page which shows he worked at no-less than  4 different schools in the 5 years prior to becoming an MP, and  his 2020 TES interview in which he happily admitted that his nckname was "Grumpy Gullis -  because I never smiled" and that his Head of Year was "probably happy to  see me go". After such a ringing self-endorsement, the recruitment  crisis needs to get a whole-lot worse before any sane school leader  considers giving him a job.

september 2024

  

I hope you all had a lovely time over the summer and a great first week  back at school. Apologies for not getting this update out earlier but I  was still busy writing analysis reports last week, and the slight delay  has also meant that I've had time to mull over all of those  announcements that coincided with the start of term. More of those  later, but here's a few items of 'admin' to take note of first:


KS2 Data Checking
Hopefully you should have had another reminder about this direct from the DfE, and I've also seen that the LA's Assessment Team have got an article on the LFL website (which has helpful links to guidance documents etc)  but it probably doesn't hurt to repeat here that this exercise has now  moved to the DfE Sign-in Portal. The checking exercise 'opens' this morning and you have until 5pm on Friday 20th September to check your data and apply for removals. One other change this year  that was news to me is that you can now apply to remove a child if they  have arrived (from a country that is on the 'eligible' list) within the last three years, rather than the last two as was previously the case.

KS2 marking and clerical review outcomes will be available on the PAG on  Wednesday 11 September 2024. Once logged in, if you go to the  'Completed Activity' section you should be able to see all of the info  about the results of any reviews you have requested, while in the  'Available Activity' section you should be able to download copies of  reviewed scripts etc. Importantly, you need to bear in mind that  outcomes of marking and clerical reviews are not reflected in the  September checking exercise, but they should be reflected in the revised  school-level data published in December.

Multiplication Tables Check pupil results data are available to be downloaded from the 'MTC Service' section of the DfE Sign-in Portal, until 27th September. Those of you who have received an  Analysis Report from me will have spotted that the MTC section is  currently blank as there's no school, LA or national level data in  Perspective Lite at the moment. Once all of that data appears, I will  update your reports and send them out again, but it might be a bit of a  wait because the DfE Statisticial Release for the MTC wasn't published until November last year.

The last bit of admin is a reminder that the reception baseline assessment (RBA) must be administered to all eligible pupils in the first 6 weeks after they enter reception. Although I'm sure your EYFS leads have got it all under control!

Now on to the 'fun' stuff:
We were probably all expecting an announcement about the scrapping of 'one-word' inspection judgements to be made at some point in the near future, but the fact that it was  done on the first day of term certainly took me by surprise; and the  fact that it was actually leaked just before midnight on Sunday got  quite a few people very annoyed. However, if you're doom-scrolling  through social media in the early hours before the first day of a new  school year instead of at least trying to get a decent amount of  sleep, you've probably only got yourself to blame. Most of the teaching  associations/unions etc have welcomed the announcement, although there  have been a few dissenting voices. I won't bore you by rehearsing the  arguments here, but I was amused by someone who pleaded "This is going to destroy the school gate banner industry.  Has no one thought of them??". In my view, the most significant  consequence of this announcement is that those people who are capable of  or willing to engage with a level of detail which exceeds 'one word'  will now immediately see that schools which would have previously been  branded as less than 'Good' overall, are actually very frequently 'Good'  or even 'Outstanding' in a number of areas. FFT have released a very timely study which shows that 62% of schools graded RI overall were graded good or better for at least 2 of the sub-judgments.

Once  we have all got over the initial excitement of this announcement,  however, I think it's becoming increasingly clear that, for at least the  next 12 months, nothing much is really going to change: the  underlying inspection framework is remaining unchanged for the time  being, and until Ofsted reports stop being used by some governing  bodies, Trust Boards, LAs, Regional Commissioners & the DfE as a  weapon in the war of 'high stakes accountability', school leaders will  continue to feel very stressed in the run-up to an inspection.



A potentially much more significant announcement that was also made  just before the start of term was the launch of the new government's curriculum and assessment review which will be led by Professor Becky Francis, who is the Chief Exec of  the Education Endowment Fund. This wide-ranging review could end up  having a much bigger impact on schools in the long term, and while I'm  sure most of the focus will be on the 'curriculum' aspect of the review,  I will probably be more interested in the changes that they end up  recommending for our assessment system. The terms of reference for the  review states that the aim is to deliver "an assessment system that  captures the strengths of every child and young person and the breadth  of curriculum, with the right balance of assessment methods whilst  maintaining the important role of examinations". Personally, I'm hoping that they recognise the current imbalance of statutory assessments across the primary and secondary phases: with 5  statutory assessment points (arguably 6 if you count Y2 Phonics  separately) between Reception and Year 6, and then nothing until GCSEs  in Year 11. It's definitely an opportunity to rationalise the excessive  burden of assessments on our youngest children, in my view.

One of the many uncertainties around all of this is how the aforementioned review will dovetail with Ofsted's development of a new Report Card.  These new report cards are supposedly scheduled to replace the current  reports by September 2025, and while it's very positive that we've been  told that there will be a much stronger focus on "schools’ context, their inclusivity and on pupil happiness and wellbeing", I  can't believe that Ofsted won't retain at least a passing interest in  the quality and content of a school's curriculum and how well it has  performed in whatever stautory assessments we will have, going forward.  So, either Becky Francis et al are going to have to undertake their  review and the DFE act on it extremely swiftly, or (much more likely) we  are going to have to accept the fact that whatever format Ofsted come  up with for their report cards (and the underyling new inspection  framework) in a year's time, it's bound to have to be repeatedly edited  to reflect the changes to curriculum & assessment which will almost  certainly take years to implement.

It's  probably going to get very messy in the short term and we will just have  to hope that it all turns out OK in the end. Interesting times ahead!

July #2 2024

  

 Hello again everyone - Hopefully this is the last email from me  before I disappear for a couple of weeks on Friday morning (getting a  break before I spend all summer writing reports!).

A few questions have come in which might be useful for everyone to see the answers for.

Higher Standard / Greater Depth at KS2

  • The  scaled score thresholds for HS in the tested subjects are usually not  published until September, but they have always been 110 since 2016 and  there's no reason to think they will be any different this year.
  • There  won't be any official published data for HS / GD until September but  Perspective Lite always produce unofficial figures based on the  assumption that the thresholds will stay the same. I've just gone into  PL and the national figures are already there so I've provided them  below. AS EVER PLEASE DON'T MAKE THESE PUBLIC!!
  • Reading 28%, down from 29% in 2023
  • Writing 13%, no change from 2023
  • Maths 24%, no change from 2023
  • GPS 32%, up from 30% in 2023

Scaled Score conversions

  • https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-2-tests-2024-scaled-scores/2024-key-stage-2-scaled-score-conversion-tables
  • This webpage shows you the conversion of raw test marks into scaled scores.
  • These are the 'pass-marks' for each subject:
  • Reading: 27 out of 50
  • Maths: 54 out of 110
  • GPS: 35 out of 70

How do children who do not take the test affect our results

  • Children  who do not take the test (e.g. those who are 'working below the level  of the test') are included in the denominator for calculating percentage  attainment measures. So, if you have 60 children but only 59 took the  test and 40 passed the test then the calculation would be 40/60 = 67%
  • However, children who do not take the test are not included in the average point score calculation. This is because they  don't have a score and therefore can't be included ('nominal' point  scores are not issued for the APS calculation). To calculate the APS,  add up all of the test scores and divide that by the number of children who took the test.
  • Just  to complicate matters, when progress measures were being calculated  (they're not this year or next) children with no test scores were given nominal scores and were included in the progress calculation. We will have to wait and see what happens in 2026!

New arrivals from overseas

  • In previous years, removals of 'new to country' children were applied for  via the 'Tables Checking'  website in September, but this is no longer active (I tried doing a search and it  appears to have been wiped off the face of the earth!!). I believe  that there will be a  new portal called ‘Check Your  Performance Measures Data’ being launched at some point and that headteachers were sent a letter about it in April, but I've  not seen a full copy and also can't find anything official about the  new portal on the DfE website.
  • I have found these articles on a couple of LAs websites:
  • https://traded.enfield.gov.uk/news/2024/jun/2024-check-your-performance-measures-data-school-and-college-checking-exercises
  • https://www.egfl.org.uk/news/2024/06/2024-check-your-performance-measures-data
  • The criteria for removals always used to be listed at the point of application and  related to the time the child had spent in this country and which country they  came from (the originating country must not have English as one of its official languages).
  • As soon as I have any more details I will circulate them.

Applying for a Marking Review

  • https://www.gov.uk/guidance/key-stage-2-tests-how-to-apply-for-a-review-of-key-stage-2-results
  • Use this webpage to apply for a review of the marking of a test script
  • You have until 11:59pm on Friday 19 July 2024 to submit an application

It  sounds as though the process of logging into the Primary Assessment  Gateway went smoothly yesterday - the new government must already be  having a positive impact

Hope  your results were positive yesterday; all the best for the rest of the  term and I hope you have a great summer break. See you in September! 

July 2024

  

My body clock still seems to be out of kilter after staying up all  night on Thursday to watch the election results: this morning I've been  awake since about 3am so I've decided to get up and write my missive for  this month rather than stare at the ceiling for another hour.

I  doubt that many of you were able to enjoy the excitement of election  night first-hand (seeing as you've all got proper jobs to get up for)  but I'm confident that for most of you, your Friday morning mood will  have been significantly improved by the news that so many of the  pantomime villains that have been ruining the show for the last 14 years  are now in need of alternative employment. For us educationalists, it  was particularly heartwarming to see Gillian Keegan finding out that she  was going to have to start looking for a new job, but the absolute  highlights of the night had to be Jacob Rees Mogg and Liz Truss finally  getting their comeuppance.

I'm sure there will be a range  of views and enthusiasm amongst you in relation to the new government,  but it's got to be a refreshing change to now have people in charge who  are focussed on actually trying to make the country run properly. I'm  looking forward seeing a lot less corruption & chaos and a bit more  policy & progress towards solving the many problems that face us.

There's  still not a huge amount of detail in relation to what's in-store for  the world of education under the new government, but Bridget Phillipson's first speech at the DfE seemed to be focussing on getting the basics sorted as  quickly as possible: making sure our children have a decent breakfast at  the start of the school day, ensuring that early years provision is the  best that it can be, providing extra resources for speech &  language and mental health support, and addressing the recruitment  crisis. And it seems that I'm not the only person who has had an early  start this morning: by 8am Ms Phillipson had already launched her campaign to recruit an extra 6,500 teachers. Let's hope these encouraging words are swiftly followed up by positive actions.

Talking of early starts, most of you will be hoping to log in to the Primary Assessment Gateway to download your KS2 results from 7.30am tomorrow.  Except that we all know it's not going to be that simple: the STA have  already forewarned that system is likely to experience the same delays  and long waits that affected many people last year, and that "users may  be held in a queue for a short time when signing in”. As teachers, you  never have the opportunity of going to a Glastonbury festival, but at  least you can now experience what it's like to try to buy a ticket. I  sincerely hope that it's not as bad as last year, but if you do end up  having to sit in a lengthy online queue, look out for another email from  me shortly after 9.30, which will hopefully contain a quick summary of  what the national results are looking like. 

JUNE 2024

 So, Sunak has finally done the decent thing and named the date.  You'd think that I'd be happy, but I'm bitterly disappointed because Michael Gove has not done the decent thing; announcing that he will not be standing for re-election.
For  many people involved in education, the prospect of Gove losing his seat  would have been the "Portillo-moment-to-end-all-Portillo-moments", but  the nasty little toad has remained true to form to the end and denied us  the opportunity of seeing him humiliated. However, not everyone was  happy to see the back of the slug-lord though: Katherine Birbalsingh's eulogy to the "greatest Education Secretary we have ever had" was almost  hysterical, and was signed-off with a love heart emoji. I suppose  there's someone for everyone out there.

Although  Gove has fled the sinking ship in advance of the inevitable, our  current Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is still standing, and is  also on the list of 12 ministers who are in danger of losing their seats (even though she currently has a majority of almost 20k) so that's got  to be a reason to stay up late on election night. Her current strategy  for winning back a few votes is to perpetuate scare stories about Labour's plan to make private schools pay VAT,  but that has already backfired with lots of people on social media  pointing out that the school she was using as an example had announced  its closure months ago, citing long term falling-rolls and the cost of  living crisis. Nothing to do with VAT.

The  right-wing press are doing their best to get people to worry about the  2% who might have to tighten their belts and have one fewer foreign  holiday per year or sell the pony to pay their higher school-fees, but  I'd rather focus on the 98% who attend schools which are desparate for  better funding. However, I'm still not convinced that Labour will be  able to solve all the problems facing the education sector with the  estimated £1.5bn raised from the raid on private schools. They have  already announced almost 30 different education and childcare policies which would eat up the bulk of this money, but there's no mention of how they are going to solve the immediate problem of funding the teachers' pay review (which Keegan has decided to leave for Labour to sort out), no mention of how they are going to sort out the crisis in Special Needs, and no mention of how they intend to reverse the decades-long failure to adequately maintain school buildings.  I've no doubt that there will be some improvements under a new  government, but it would naive to think that we'll be entering some kind  of 'golden-age'.

That's enough politics  for now, especially after last night's depressingly uninformative TV  debate, so I'll move on to some more mundane matters:


If you want to relive the joys of SATs week, the KS2 test materials have been published and are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments-practice-materials. This web page also includes links to all of the Optional KS1 test materials, past papers and Scaled Score Conversion Tables. There's also detailed analysis of this year's KS2 Maths papers  (one of which I understand was a bit of a 'stinker'!) written by  Sophie Bartlett. The Reading paper seemed to be more 'reasonable' this  year, but it looks as though they make sure that at least one of the  papers every year is gratuitously tough. Does that mean it will be  SPAG's turn in 2025??

Tomorrow will see the release of the main January 2024 census data, which will be available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2024. And the Special Educational Needs data collected via the census will be published on 20th June here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2024
If  you've requested an Early Aanlysis Report from me I'll be including a  summary of your school's pupil charatceristic data (FSM%, BME%, EAL%,  SEN% etc) as reported in these January 2024 census figures.

FFT's Education Datalab have done a few studies in the last few weeks which might interest secondary colleagues.

  • They've looked at the Progress 8 measure and whether it could/should be 'contextualised.  Those of you with long memories will remember that FFT invented  Contextual Value Added back in the late 1990s and that a form of this  was adopted as a key accountability measure by the last Labour  government, before it was ditched by our friend Michael Gove. I wonder  if they are thinking it migh be time to dust-off the old concept and see  if will come back into fashion??
  • They've looked at whether pupils taught in single-sex schools getter better grades. TLDR, yes, but it's more to do with other factors than the single-sex environment.
  • They've done a study on the numbers of pupils attending off-site provision. No surprises here, the numbers are much higher in Years 10 & 11, and amongst Disadvantaged & SEN pupils.
  • And this morning they've just published an analysis of pupil mobility (pupils leaving schools) in Years 7-11. I've not had chance to read  this properly yet, but it seems to show that overall rates of mobility  are broadly stable compared to previous years, and that 'perhaps  unsurprisingly, vulnerable pupils tend to be more prone to mobility'.

Finally, I've been alerted to the fact that the DfE have written to all schools "on 15 April 2024 to inform schools and colleges that  from 2024, there would be a new DfE service called ‘Check Your  Performance Measures Data’ (CYPMD). CYPMD will use a new portal to administer the school and college checking exercises."
I'm  afraid this isn't something I know anything about and I can't find  anything about it on the internet yet. I assume it means that the old  'Tables Checking' website has been retired and will be replaced this new  portal. Hopefully all of the election shenanigans won't cause a  complete collapse in the 'engine of the state' and that someone in the  Civil Service will remember to push the right buttons in the right order  to make the new system work effectively in Septepmber! 

MAY 2024

 

I hope that you are all feeling as confident and well-prepared as it is possible to be for the impending SATs week.  We're now at the stage where there is nothing more to be done except  hope that everyone benefits from a restful weekend. Some of you will be  crossing your fingers that the parent of the  nailed-on-greater-depth-in-all-subjects-star-pupil-who-was-threatening-a-last-minute-holiday  will have had a change of heart and allows them to turn up on Monday  morning, while others will be worrying about the child who has the  potential to reach the expected standard on a good day but who lives in a  home that is troubled by domestic violence; especially given the fact  that there is a particularly important and stressful football match happening on Sunday. These are just two examples of the plethora of  unpredictable events and circumstances beyond our control which can have  a huge impact on the 'performance' which schools are judged by. Such  are the vagaries of our education accountability system.


If  you are a regular reader of these updates then you won't need reminding  that the KS2 tests & assessments have an additional element of  peril this year because there won't be any progress measures calculated (due to the absence of KS1 prior attainment data in 2020); the 2024 DfE  Performance Tables and OFSTED IDSRs will only contain attainment data.  This will be a particular concern for schools that will always struggle  to meet national attainment 'averages' due to the demography of their  pupil intake, and although I hesitate to cynically take the opportunity  to advertise our 'Beyond The Gates'  demography reports, I do think it's vital for such schools to be able  to confidently articulate their 'context' to those audiences who are  tempted to make blunt comparisons of the attainment of very different  schools. For the next couple of years at least, we need to be constantly  reminding ourselves and others that no matter how well we prepare and  perform in these tests & assessments, there will always be 20% of schools in the "bottom 20% of schools".



Some people have expressed concern that Sir Martyn Oliver's recent announcement that from September all ungraded inspections will be no longer include 'deep dives' might mean that inspectors will instead revert to an undue reliance on  attainment data in forming their judgements. I really hope that this  does not turn out to be true, and I honestly suspect that rather than  this being a sly reintroduction of data-driven judgements, this decision  has actually been motivated by expediency and a desire to deliver a  'quick win' to pacify those who are clamouring for more fundamental and  swift reform of his organisation. As he alluded to in his speech at the NAHT conference on Monday, even if he wants to deliver  fundamental changes such as scrapping 'single phrase judgements' his  hands are effectively tied until there is someone in charge at the DfE  who agrees with him. So we will have to wait until Gillian Keegan loses  her job (and hopefully her seat as well).  Moreover, removing deep dives from about 40% of inspections next year  doesn't just make a lot of schools' lives a little bit easier, it also  makes OFSTED's life a bit easier too in terms of the workload of  inspectors. It isn't just schools that are facing a recruitment and  retention crisis.



It seems increasingly  clear that the current government is content to just sit back and watch  everything fall apart while they delay the inevitable for as long as  possible. They've basically admitted that they won't consider changing  single-phrase OFSTED judgements because it will cause too much disruption to their own ill-informed systems for categorising schools; they've also owned-up to the fact that it will be almost impossible to fund next year's teacher's pay rise from existing budgets; and they are steadfastly ignoring the ever-worsening special needs crisis. Even more risible is their decision despite the ongoing teacher recruitment crisis to axe the Now Teach Recruitment scheme.  It's just part of their wider programme of witholding much-needed  public funding in order to deliver a few more tax cuts, in the hope that  they will buy a few more votes and save a few more of their skins. They  know they won't have to deal with the deepening problems caused by  their actions for much longer and they are just looking out for  themselves.



Talking of 'saving their own  skins' the growing number of Tory MPs who are trying to ensure their  survival by crossing the floor of the House to join the Labour Party is  causing me some alarm. If the Labour leadership are prepared to welcome  someone like Natalie Elphicke into their ranks, you've got to wonder whether there is anyone they wouldn't accept. I lost a fair amount of sleep last night thinking about the  prospect of Michael Gove suddenly having one of these Damascene  conversions and returning as Education Secretary under a Keir Starmer  premiership. At this rate, I think Labour will have to drop their famous  election anthem of yesteryear 'Things Can Only Get Better' and replace  it with 'What Goes around Comes Around' by Justin Timberlake. 

APRIL 2024

 Many  thanks to all of you who have already informed me of your  requirements  for 2024-25, it looks like I'm going to have another busy  year! I only  have a few 'slots' left for Early Analysis Reports over the  summer, so  if you want a report please let me know as soon as possible.
 

This time of year is a  particularly onerous period for your assessment  leads, who must feel as  though they are being bombarded from all sides  with deadlines,  regulations and checklists. The Standards & Tesing Agency have released no less than 34 different documents relating to statutory assessment so far in March this year; hopefully   your assessment colleagues (especially if they are new to the role) are   coping OK and getting the support they need.
 

Talking of the upcoming round of statutory assessments, in the last couple of days the NAHT have argued that the 2024 KS2 results shouldn't be 'made public' in the normal way this year and shoud be interpreted with extreme   caution because of the lack of progress data (due to the   pandemic-related cancellation of KS1 assessments in 2020). While I   completely agree with the main thrust of this argument, I can't help   wondering why NAHT have waited until now to raise this as an issue:   we've known that this was going to happen for a long time and the NAHT   should surely know how difficult it is to get this government to  address  an issue. I can only assume that this is some form of  'rearguard  action': they know that there's nothing that they can do to  change the  decision so they are making it clear that they think schools  shouldn't  be judged on this year's results. Many of you who have  recently been  inspected will have experienced hardly any discussion  about 'data' with  inspectors, but I do know that there are some schools who have  been on the end of unduly harsh judgements that have been  influenced by  their inspectors' un-nuanced interpretation of low raw  attainment  figures. In the absence of progress data for the next two  years there is  a clear danger that these instances of misinterpetaion  of attainment  data by inpsectors could become more prevalent.
 

So, this is a reminder (for me as well as much as anyone else) that we need to find some time to contribute to OFSTED's 'Big Listen' survey which closes on 31st May.  There's no guarantee that Sir Martyn Oliver  and his chums will take a  blind-bit of notice of what we say, but if we  don't speak up now then I  suppose we can't moan about what they do in  the future. And I wouldn't  want to miss out on that opportunity.
 

This month's news has provided plenty of other reasons to be uncheerful:
 

  • The long-running scandal of the extortionate fees charged by private companies for children's social care places has been running below the radar for some time but has started to   attract some attention recently. If you've ever wondered where all of   your LA's Children's Services budget goes to, the country's biggest private care company apparently charged councils a total of £575 million this year, with £1 in every £5 being syphoned   off to private equity investors and the company chairman receiving a   salary of more than £1 million, while their front-line staff are paid   £10.75 an hour. Addressing this scandal has surely got to be one of the   top priorities for any new government.
     
  • In my last update I had a little rant about the ineffectiveness of raising the amount that parents will be fined for unauthorised absences, and the stupidity of this policy has been further confirmed by new research which shows that it will have the most negative impact on our poorest children.   Pupil absence is a really serious issue, but as Geoff Barton states:   "There is a wider issue about absence relating to the growing number   of children who suffer from anxiety and other mental health issues,   families who are struggling to cope, and disengagement with education,   which schools are endeavouring to address by working with families and   pupils to improve their attendance rather than using fines. Schools  need  more help from the government in this work both in  terms of the  funding they receive and investment in local social care,  attendance  and mental health services. Education has become an  unofficial fourth  emergency service picking up the pieces for a  decade-long erosion of  support services. This cannot go on."
     
  • Another depressing read was served-up by Sir Kevan Collins with his account of the four months he spent trying and failing to get the government to take COVID catch-up seriously. Of course, the abject failure of this initiative has got absolutely nothing to do with the pupil absence crisis that we are currently facing!
     
  • Sir Dan Moynihan is another Knight of the Realm who has previously been closely   connected to the Conservative education establishment but who now   appears to be publicly re-positioning himself in advance of the general   election. He also wrote an article earlier this month, promoting new poilcy priorities including tackling child poverty, sorting out the crisis in early years   provision, attendance, mental health and school funding. All of this   would require a lot of new money; perhaps a new government could ask  him  and his deputy CEO at the Harris Federation to contribute part of the £750k they take in salaries to help address these new priorities?
     
  • The DfE have been shouting very loudly about the additional funding they are making available to support a much-needed expansion in SEND schools, provision and places,   but what they are less keen for everyone to hear about is that all  this  money is being found by robbing other pots of money already  allocated  to local authorities and schools for other purposes. On top of this, while the government is claiming   that all RAAC-affected schools are receiving the money and support they   need, this means that all of the other schools whose buildings are falling apart for reasons other than RAAC are being left with nothing.
     
  • Ofqual have released a review last year's SATs which confirms what we all already knew: that the Reading test was   'harder' than in previous years, with 3 in every 10 children not making   it to the end of the paper. However, we apparently don't need to have   any concerns about the test because they "found no evidence that the   test failed to meet its stated purpose of ascertaining what pupils have   achieved". Another thing that we should also stop complaining about is   the repeated chaos with the online portal on results day. While they   acknowledge the fact that 'some' schools were unable to access results   when the gateway opened at 7.30am, by 10.30 am 79% of school had  managed  to download their results. So if you were one of the 21% of  schools  that wasted their whole morning trying to get your results by  lunchtime  then I guess that's just bad luck and you should just  Suck.It.Up. We  don't want Capita to have to put a dent in their 2.6 billion quids-worth of annual revenue by actually providing a system that works for us, do we!
     
  • And finally, we've just been informed of one more (last?) reshuffle at the Department for Education: Robert Halfon has joined the exodous of rats leaving the sinking ship, he's not  standing for re-election as an MP and has resigned as Minister  for  Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education with immediate effect.  I  was really worried that the shaved-ape-in-a-suit Jonathan Gullis would be brought back as a stop-ga(s)p but Sunak has decided that he   will do a better job of providing more red-meat and culture-wars as the   Deputy Chairman of the Tory Party now that Lee Anderson has joined   Reform/GB News; so we will have to make do with Luke Hall MP,   who as far as I can tell has no previous experience of the world of   education other than his own time at school. Apparently he started working at the Yate branch of Lidl at 18 and went onto become its manager before becoming the area manager of   Farmfoods, so at least he will have a career to fall back on when he loses his seat at the general election.
     

Happy Easter, and I hope you have an unseemly number of eggs to work your way through over the next few days. 

MARCH 2024

There's a couple of deadlines relating to KS2 tests coming up: pupil registration and applications for early opening of tests both need to be completed on the PAG by next Friday (8th March).

If  you or anyone you know is looking for an additional income stream this  summer, then it appears that the STA is still looking for people willing  to work as markers of KS2 tests and you can apply here (current deadline appears to be 7th March).

After informing schools in March 2023 that they would need to acquire a second electronic device in order to administer the RBA in 2024,  the DfE have now changed their minds and arrangements will stay as they  are until 2025. At least they've been honest and admitted that this  delay is to allow themselves "more time to develop and test this  approach" rather than out of any concern for schools. The updated  guidance on IT requirements for the RBA is here.

As you will be already aware, from 2024 KS1 tests are optional and there is no statutory requirement submit teacher assessments. I have asked Leeds LA whether they are planning to give schools the option of submitting KS1 TA data to be uploaded to Perspective Lite and they have confirmed that they will not be offering this service. This means that there won't be any KS1 data in Perspective Lite for me to include in my 'Early Analysis' Reports. Over the next few weeks I'll be considering how this (and the lack of KS2 progress data) impacts my standard offer and how much I charge for the reports this year. I'll send out my 2024-25 service offer information before we break up for Easter.

There  hasn't been a lot of educational news hitting the headlines in recent  weeks, and I'm afraid that there has been even-less in the way of 'good  news':

  • This investigation has revealed the extent of the sharp rise in children being taken out of the school system to be educated at home since the pandemic.
  • Also 'on-the-up' is the amount of money schools are having to spend on supply teachers, which has risen by a third in the state sector overall, and which has more-than doubled in special schools.
  • The ongoing teacher recruitment crisis is showing no sign of recovery, with the only increase in new applicants coming from overseas.
  • Meanwhile the government focuses on 'fixing' a problem that most schools have already adressed, by releasing new guidance on the use of mobile phones.
  • And  the likely incoming government is hard at work developing policies that  will involve spending as little money as possible, such as this  initiative to tackle misogyny in schools.

Yesterday, it was announced that from September all schools will be required to share thare their daily attendance registers with the DfE. However, the headline-grabbing element of the announcement was that parental fines for unauthorised absence will be rising by £20 to £80 per parent. I  can't help thinking that this is going to have a negligble impact on  those parents who currently take term-time holidays. I've just done a  quick search on Travel Supermarket, looking for a 7 night B&B stay  in a 4star hotel on the Costa Del Sol for a family of 4. If you go at  the end of July it'll cost you about £3,400 but if you wait until the beginning of  September it will cost about £2,200. That's a saving of £1200, so you'd  still be saving over £1000 even if you're fined.
I think  we all know that tackling poor attendance is very challenging and  complex, involving very few quick-fixes and lots of hard work. Perhaps  the government should direct its energies towards addressing the many  long-term, ingrained social issues which create many of the barriers to  good attendance.

 

february 2024

 Analysing School Performance (ASP) has now been updated with KS2 Revised data and if you generate the School Performance Summary from the 'All  Reports' section it now contains several new analyses, including  progress tables for Disadvantaged children as well as scatterplots of  progress and attainment in each subject. The IDSRs have also just been updated with KS2 revised data.
It  also looks like the absence data in ASP has been updated to show  figures for the first two terms of 2022-23 (it was previously showing  2021-22).

Y4 Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) data has been very hard to get hold of until recently but it is  also now present ASP as well as popping up unexpectedly in Perspective  Lite. In ASP, the only MTC measures that are shown are a 'mean average  score' and a 'percentage taking the check' measure. The latter is  particularly interesting: the national 'participation rate' is 96% but  this figure varies considerably for different pupil groups: the lowest  (unsurprisingly) is for children with EHCPs (47%) and for children  requiring SEN support it is 94%; however the national figure for  Disadvantaged children (93%) is also very low. I'm wondering whether  this is a reflection of poor attendance rates for Disadvantaged children  (which we already know is a severe problem).
While ASP does provide pupil group participation rates, it doesn't provide pupil group attainment figures.  I can't decide whether this is intentional or just plain-old  incompetence. But what it means is that while a school (or an inspector)  can see the participation rate for its Disadvantaged children, it can't  see their results. This may or may not be a good thing.
However,  if you do want to see a pupil group breakdown of your MTC attainment  then you can get it from Perspective Lite. But they don't provide  participation figures. Nothing like a bit of consistency to make  everyone's life a bit easier, eh?

Ironically, the DfE have  only managed to upload the final KS2 2022-23 attainment data to their  reporting systems a matter of days before we all have to turn our  attention to the 2023-24 round of tests and assessments. The Primary Assessment Gateway (PAG) opens on 12th February and the first job you need to do on this is to register your KS2 pupils (by March 8th) Apparently, the guidance for this exercise will be updated on 8th February.

On  to the education 'news', here's 4 articles from the last month that  provide yet more evidence of the government belatedly noticing issues  that have been bleedin' obvious to the rest of us for ages:

  • Schools minister Damian Hinds has admitted the workload of New Teacher Mentors is 'too high' as he announces reforms that he knows are very unlikely to be implemented before the next election.
  • The DfE have now decided to not to go ahead with their changes to the EBACC accountability measure,  which were due to affect the 2024 KS4 cohort. The measures really do  need to be changed, but these changes need to be applied to cohorts that  are yet to start KS4 studies, rather than 'changing the goalposts' at  the last minute.
  • If you ever suspected that your OFSTED  inspector was 'making it up as they went along' then this has been  confirmed with the news that the online recording system that they've been using for years has regularly crashed and left them with no record of the notes they made on site, forcing them to write-up inspection evidence from memory. 
  • Academies minister Baroness Barran has expressed concern about the lack of support that some RAAC-affected schools have received from their local authorities.  That'll be the local authorities that have had 60% of their funding cut  since 2010 and don't have any staff left then, won't it?

Finally, I expect many of you will have seen this already, but a few days ago the YEP randomly published a collection of the '49 best photos of Leeds teachers from the 1990s'.  This has been an absolutely joyous nostalgia trip for me, as someone  who started work in Leeds in the early 90s, who recognises many of these  faces, and who remembers most of them fondly. See how many you can spot, there's at least one person who's on this mailing list!

January 2024

 

There has been a particularly annoying lack of activity in relation  to the DfE making KS2 revised data available. The Performance Tables  were published on the 14th December,  so we know that the data exists somewhere, but the DfE are yet to  update the Analysing School Performance (ASP) system, and even more  annoyingly, it appears that they are currently witholding the data from  Perspective Lite and FFTAspire. This means that those schools which have  asked me to update my analysis reports to reflect revised data are  going to have to wait until the DfE pull their fingers out and get this  sorted, hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer.

January  is a popular time for updating those new diaries and calendars you got  in your Christmas stockings, so here's a reminder of where to find all  of the key dates for statutory assessments. If you've been lucky enough  to receive a multi-year diary you can even go as far as 2026! https://www.gov.uk/guidance/primary-assessments-future-dates

The only notable data that I'm aware has been published recently is the  regular update to the national pupil attendance statistics which can be  found here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools. FFT Educationdatalab have also released an interesting study of the figures they collect from participating schools https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2024/01/pupil-absence-in-autumn-term-2023/.  This shows that although there was a spike in absence towards the end  of last term, it wasn't anywhere near as extreme as last year's and that  absence over the whole of the term was therefore not as high as in  Autumn 2022. 


You'll  probably have seen that Labour have recently been making a lot of  policy announcements on Education, and they've had a big focus on how  they intend to tackle absence. You all know how hard I try *not* to be  cynical, but I can't help thinking that some clever policy adviser has  noticed an opportunity for an "easy win" here. Official Absence figures  run a year 'behind', so at the moment everyone is looking at the 2021-22  figures which were awful, mainly due to COVID. However, if we are  already starting to see an improving trend in unofficial attendance  figures it could well be the case that an incoming Labour administration  could make some swift changes when they come into office and take  credit for the improved official attendance figures in 2023 and 2024,  irrespective of whether or not there was any link between cause and  effect. Luvly Jubbly!

Here's an article which summarises what Labour say they will do in relation to absence.  These include plans to legislate for a register of children not in  school, funding for schools to deliver early language support, mental  health counsellors in every secondary school, curriculum reform and  breakfast clubs. They also say they are going to investigate a  "Children's number" - 'What about the UPN that already exists?' I hear  you cry - I'm assuming that they are talking about an identification  number that is assigned at birth (or on entry to the country) rather  than on admission to school, which can be used across the whole of the  public sector estate rather than just in education. This would have the  benefit of joining up datasets from different organisations, which has  always been a huge problem and was a major stumbling block for the old  'integrated children's services' vision of the previous Labour  government in the noughties. In my experience, though, this will be a  very difficult project to deliver and will have to be a long term  ambition.  Their proposal to use Artificial Intelligence to spot  patterns in pupil absence sounds even more 'imaginative' but I expect  this is something that people like FFTAspire are playing around with  anyway so it might not be too far-fetched. Again, the last Labour  government were quite keen on stealing ideas from FFT (who remembers  Contextual Value Added??) so I wouldn't be surprised if they are talking  to people behind the scenes about the viability of this kind of stuff.  Meanwhile the current government appears to be pursuing the strategy of attendance hubs, with an announcement that this programme will be expanded, with 18 new hubs to be created.

Labour are also starting to provide a bit more detail on their wider education policies. Bridget Phillipson delivered a speech at the beginning of the week and summarised the main points on social media.   There is confirmation that they intend to reform OFSTED and to separate  the monitoring of safeguarding and attendance from the core business of  inspecting educational standards. There are also plenty of other  attractive-sounding promises, but the detail on funding is sparse: I'm  not convinced that taxing private schools and non-dom billionaires will  provide enough cash to deliver everything they are talking about!

I  realise I might be starting to sound like a bit of a Labour fan-boy  (don't worry, I'm sure I will find plenty to moan about if/when they get  into power) so in the interest of balance, I feel I should share the  good news story that the DfE were making a big fuss about yesterday,  that there are now around 440 family hubs opened in 75 local authorities.   They only need to open up another 1000 to get back to somewhere near  the level we were at 13 years ago before they closed 1400 Sure Start  Centres!

Finally, recent news headlines  have been dominated by the Post Office scandal, but if you look hard  enough you can always find an education angle - and this one is  particularly juicy. The investigation is working its way back to the  source of the problem: the IT system used by the Post Office, which was  delivered and run by Fujitsu. And guess who was a senior IT executive at  Fujitsu for many years and who was even its CEO between 2015-18? Only  one Michael Keegan, loving husband of our current Education Secretary  Gillian Keegan. And Fujitsu have continued to be awarded billions of  pounds in publicly-funded government contracts since the inquiry into  this scandal was first launched in 2019. Labour are saying that they  will relentlessly pursue and retrieve corrupt government payouts to  businesses - perhaps Education could benefit from some of this money in  the future - we can only hope!

December 2023

Finally,  the last week of this seemingly endless term is almost in sight! I'm  sure you are all looking forward to next Friday afternoon when I hope  you will be able to take a bucket-full of mince pies straight to bed and  only emerge from hibernation when the eggnog runs out.

If  you are hoping that this update will raise your festive spirits, I'm  sorry to disappoint. And the DfE are also doing their best to keep a lid  on any seasonal jollity by releasing the KS2 Performance Tables this morning. Yay! These are the first publicly-available school-level  figures for the primary phase since 2019, so they are bound to attract  some attention. The indicators published for each school are:

  • the percentage of pupils achieving the ‘expected standard’ in Reading, Writing and Maths (combined)
  • the percentage of pupils who achieve at a higher standard in English reading, English writing and maths (combined)
  • the pupils’ average scaled score in: Reading and Maths (separately)
  • average progress scores in Reading, Writing and Maths (separately)
  • The  Performance Tables website also includes absence data (inc PA) for the  2021/22 academic year, pupil population data from the January 2023  census and Workforce and Finance data from 2022-23.
  • The  figures published in the should reflect any successful requests for  removals that you submitted as well as any successful remarks.
  • However,  I've already noticed that the website doesn't appear to have been  updated to reflect recent inspections - some schools that I know have  been inspected in the autumn term and have had their reports published  still have their previous inspection information displayed on the  performance tables website.

It's been well-over a  month since my last update and I don't think anyone would thank me for  trying to summarise everything that's happened since the start of  November, but there is one event of particular signficance that I do  need to mark with appropriate solemnity and respect, and that is the  terribly sad resignation of Nick Gibb who - as many of you will be aware - was a particular 'hero' of mine  who has been regularly referenced in these monthly missives. Mr Gibb has  been at the heart of Conservative education policy making for the last  20 years, he has been a government minister for most of the last 13  years and has served no-less-than 3 stints as Schools Minister! He has  been pivotal in most of the significant reforms introduced (inflicted?)  over recent years, including (but not limited to): The Phonics Screening  Check, The Multiplication Tables Check, The Reception Baseline  Assessment, SPAG tests, the imposition of specific methods for teaching  reading, the 'knowledge-rich' curriculum, the dropping of Contextual  Value Added, the introduction of the EBacc (and the subsequent decline of creative subjects in secondary schools), the Free Schools Programme and the encouragement  of 'zero-tolerance' behaviour policies. That's quite a list of  'achievements' to look back on with pride while he enjoys his  retirement. Whatever your opinion of him, it is unquestionably the end  of an era and we are unlikely to ever see another individual politician  who has such a significant impact on our education system.
Gibb has been replaced by Damian Hinds. Yes, that Damian Hinds, who was Secretary of State for Education for about 18  months under Theresa May (he was the one who came between Justine  Greening and Gavin Williamson, if you can remember either of them).  Unlike Gibb, I can't recall any of his 'achievements' and I doubt he  will be providing me with as much material for these updates.

Despite  Gibb resigning in early November, he couldn't resist jumping back into  the limelight at the start of December to celebrate the publication of this year's PISA rankings which, he claims, demonstrate the "phenomenal success" of his "evidence-led" reforms. I always look forward to the release of the latest PISA data by the OECD every year: it's like the World Cup of data-football, with competing  teams of politicians, educational factions and vested interests trying  to use the data to score 'goals' for their side. Gibb, for example,  hailed England's rise to 11th in the world rankings for Maths  (which I think is fairly meidocre for the 5th largest economy in the  world) while Bridget Philippson (for Labour) made a big deal about the  fact that the actual scores achieved in the tests by English  pupils have fallen in all subjects compared to 2018 (they've fallen in  most countries, probably due to the pandemic).
However, my attention was drawn to the fact that only 66% of the English schools  selected to take part in the sample PISA testing actually undertook the  tests, and that only 75% of the selected pupils within these schools  actually sat the tests. Despite the fact that this was way-below  PISAs' own participation standards (and that most other countries  successfully met these standards) the results for England were still  included in the rankings with no caveats about their reliability. Some  commentators have noted that 'lower-performing' schools and 'less  engaged' pupils were likely to have been under-represented in the  English sample and that our overall results are therefore likely to be  significantly over-inflated. And the whole exercise is about as  informative as a game of Numberwang.

While  Gibb and Phillipson were battling it out over the interpretation of the  academic PISA results, perhaps the most important (and scary) figures  coming out of the wider data set published by the OECD related to pupil wellbeing.  Again, these figures are also affected by the same participation  issues, but assuming that 'lower performing' schools and 'less engaged'  pupils were under-represented, it means that the actual situation is  probably worse than suggested by these figures:

  • life satisfaction scores of English pupils are significantly lower than the OECD average and amongst the lowest in the world rankings.
  • More than 10% of pupils (almost twice as large as the OECD average) said they had to skip meals every day or almost every day because of a lack of money. Apparently, on this measure we are on a par with Mexico and Moldova.

A few similarly depressing research reports were also published at around the same time as the OECD report:

  • The latest UNICEF child poverty report has found that the UK has seen the largest increase in child  poverty between 2014 & 2019 of any of the 39 countries included in  the study. Most countries saw a decrease in child poverty but ours has  increased by 20%. 
  • The Centre for Social Justice has found that the UK is in danger of sliding back into the “Two Nations” of the Victorian  era marked by a widening gulf between mainstream society and a depressed  and poverty-stricken underclass.
  • The Joseph Rowntree Trust   has found that 3.8 million people in the UK experienced destitution in  2022, including around one million children. This is  almost  two-and-a-half times the number of people in 2017, and nearly triple the  number of children. Destitution is defined as people being unable to  afford to meet their most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean  and fed.

And yet for some, rather than addressing our  society's growing inequalities, the answer to the educational  'disadvantage-gap' is to throw a bit of spare cash at some friendly  businesses offering 'catch up' tutoring programmes and then blame  schools when that doesn't work.

Finally, if  all of the above still hasn't dampened your festive spirit, here's a  seasonal take on the Ofsted situation which will chill you to your  bones. In my regular conversations with school leaders I often come away  with a strong sense that they are haunted by their own versions of  Dicken's three Christmas ghosts. The 'Ghost Of OFSTED Past' provides  (for some) a nostaligic reminder of the 'outstanding' achievements of  yesteryear, which soon transform into heavy chains of expectation for  the future; for others, this ghost unearths past-traumas and makes old  scars itch. The 'Ghost Of OFSTED Present' appears as the bell strikes  one (or at least by midday on Wednesday) expecting to feast on the  bounty of the school's broad and balanced curriculum; but it pays scant  attention to the plight of the destitute children hidden beneath the  folds of its splendid cloak. And even for those headteachers who are not  currently peeking nervously through the frosted panes of the inpsection  window, the 'Ghost Of OFSTED Yet To Come' is an ever-present ominous  spirit; lurking in the shadows, disturbing sleep, foretelling doom.
After  a very painful year in which the injustices and traumatic consequences  of the current inspection and accountability regime have been laid bare,  let's hope that we can look forward to 2024 'ringing in the changes'.  The NAHT & ASCL joint call for an immediate pause to inspections appears to have at least been partially heard by OFSTED who have said that schools can defer inspections scheduled for the last week of term, both the government and the Labour party are talking about the need to reform OFSTED and the new Chief Inspector who starts in January would be well-advised to use his opportunity for a  'fresh start' to address the multitude of concerns with the current  system. My wish for the new year is that Sir Martyn Oliver has a  Scrooge-like epiphany and that we can all work together to build a more  enlightened and benign accountability system.

Merry Christmas and God Bless Us One and All!   


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.  


OCTOBER 2023

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.

septembeR 2023

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.


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