december 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.

 

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!

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!   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On to the "news".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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