Low-Performing Students - Why They Fall Behind and How To Help Them Succeed - en. JTB Education - The Swarm. Life After Levels – An Assessment Revolution? Over recent months I’ve been involved in interviews for a number of posts across the Multi Academy Trust. One of our favourite questions has been, “What will assessment look like once levels are dead?” The answers have on the whole been a bit confused. This post is based on a webinar I delivered for Optimus Education in March 2015. A Necessary Confusion Teachers and potential leaders are struggling to imagine life after levels, proposing that we keep with levels or that we produce our own levelling systems for Key Stage 2 or 3. It’s a necessary confusion as we think their way from our current to a new assessment system.
Levels were removed in September 2014, with the introduction of the new National Curriculum, and will be reported for the final time in Summer 2015 for Years 2 & 6. New Horizons As the sun sets on the World of Levels, we need to lift our eyes to the horizon and make sure decisions about our new assessment systems are taking us in the right direction. References Like this: Commission on Assessment Without Levels - Groups. How many pupils will achieve 5 or more A*- C grades at GCSE including English & mathematics in 2014? A short history The current headline indicator of secondary school performance - the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grades (or equivalent) including GCSE English and mathematics (AC5EM) - has been around since the 2004/5 academic year.
Then, just over 42% of pupils achieved this standard. By 2013, this had risen to almost 61% (Figure 1). Figure 1: Percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C (or equivalent) including GCSE English and mathematics, state funded schools 2004/5 to 2012/13 The indicator has proved remarkably resilient in a changing environment. Although many other indicators of attainment are also published, AC5EM is the most widely used. Measure attainment gaps between those eligible for the Pupil Premium and their peers [3] identify schools for intervention [4] and measure the effectiveness of policies and programmes, e.g. the Academies Programme [5] Floor standards have played a part in improving outcomes in lower attaining schools.
Changes in 2014. Statistics at DfE - Department for Education. The Department for Education's statistical publications use data collected on schools, children and young people. The Department for Education publishes official statistics on education and children, in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. A range of commentary, tables and data can be accessed from these pages. Latest statistical releases 10 April 2014 School workforce in England: November 2013 2 April 2014 Outcomes for children looked after by local authorities 27 March 2014 Level 2 and 3 attainment by young people aged 19 in 2013 25 March 2014 Pupil absence in schools in England, including pupil characteristics: 2012 to 2013 13 March 2014 Participation in education, training and employment, age 16 to 18 Announcements and information Statistical series Forthcoming publications This schedule gives the planned publication dates of all of the department’s statistical first releases for the coming year.
Archived statistics Corporate information The standards we work to. GCSE Outcomes and Transition Matrices: A data tool every teacher can use. As most people recognise, when evaluating the degree of success in a set of GCSE outcomes we need some sense of the baseline before we start making like-for-like comparisons. At the risk of stating the obvious, how well we’ve done all depends on what our results look like relative to the prior attainment of the students.
This applies to comparing whole schools, year-on-year comparisons for one school, subjects within schools and teaching groups – especially if they are set by ability. Given how long various data tools have existed and how commonly they are used, it still surprises me when school leaders, subject leaders and teachers refer to raw outcomes but don’t automatically engage with a banded analysis. Using national transition matrices is a really good way to give a nuanced, stratified analysis of outcomes compared to national trends in all subjects – and I’m sure many of you will do this as a matter of routine. In this post, I am going to outline my approach. Like this: The Assessment Uncertainty Principle. In our system so much hangs on the value given to our assessments leading to qualifications. As we seek to measure learning with some degree of accuracy, we risk losing contact with the meaning of what the nature of the learning is.
Our increasing need for measures that are reproducible, consistent and transparent decreases our capacity to accept the inherent uncertainty in the whole enterprise. In our attempt to create a fair system where everyone knows what the standards are, we impose a framework that is outwardly rigid and linear relative to the fuzzy, dynamic nature of the processes we are measuring. In our classrooms we create clouds of learning – ephemeral, shape-shifting, finite but with indefinite boundaries – and then try to count them up like building blocks.
It leads to all kinds of problems. Here are some things to think about: The value of marks. It’s so normal to us to set tests where marks are awarded for certain questions. This question is worth 6 marks. Why 6 marks? Targets, Learning Gaps and Flight Paths | Leading Learner. For many of us #SLTChat on a Sunday evening has become an addictive part of the weekend. It is often an action packed and adrenaline fuelled outpouring of tweets and ideas with some of the most rapid sharing of practice you will ever find. The most popular question on the 22nd September, hence it was topic 2, is below: Last academic year I ran a session on outstanding teaching & learning for staff. An early part of the CPD was focussed on unpacking the idea of measuring “progress over time”. The basic idea is that students who are taught well make more progress than those who are not. The linear nature of these flight paths didn’t go down well with all tweeters and the comments about the non-linear nature of learning is valid.
However, over a year, key stage or whole primary or secondary school education the peaks and troughs of non-linear learning need to lead overall to a student making good progress. Flight Paths Accountable Against Outcomes Not Targets Targets & Learning Gaps Like this: Education and employment destination data published - Press releases. The Department for Education today published data showing what proportion of students in every state-funded mainstream school, college and local authority in England progressed to further or higher education, or went into employment or training.
The figures for universities are broken down to Oxbridge level, any Russell Group university, a university ranked in the top third (defined by the UCAS A level tariff score of entrants), or any higher education institution (HEI). The statistics, published as part of the government’s transparency agenda, give parents and the public even greater information with which they can choose the right school or college for their child.
In particular, today’s statistics, which relate to maintained schools, further education colleges and sixth-form colleges, show what proportion and number of students were: Schools Minister David Laws said: Headline statistics In the year after taking an A level or equivalent at key stage 5: In the year after key stage 4: Regions.