The AQA boundary changes explained...

Ok, below is my best attempt to visually show you what the changes to the grade thresholds AQA have made mean to a student in the 2012/13 cohort. It is also worth remembering in this very complex year that students were also able to take the very last 'legacy' cycle of the old GCSE in November of 2011, which has now expired. This means that Year 11 students in 2011/12 had the potential for THREE points of entry for GCSE English Language, and goes some way to explain why the picture nationally is so mixed. Schools enter students for various different units at different points in the year. Some schools do no early entry, others try and bank all their GCSE English grades early on in January of Year 11 (or even in Year 10!) to enable them to focus on other subjects.Some will enter certain sets or classes early, others will give everyone two attempts at the exam and enter the children twice. The rights and wrongs of this is a different debate for another time.

The main issue that has emerged today is that the grade boundary changes introduced between this January and June have meant that children who schools confidently estimated to be securing a certain grade were in fact not doing so, where the same work/level of ability would have secured that estimated grade earlier in the same academic year.

In short, if you were entered early you will have done significantly better for the same quality of work. This is where the injustice lies. Not in the changing of boundaries as a concept (leave the grade inflation debate for another day), but in the change mid-year, without notification, and with the effect of many students missing their targets and teacher/college forecasts being incorrect. Teachers work hard to help students reach the highest level they are capable of. What has happened is like a teacher marking out a finish line for a student to run to, firing the starter pistol and the authorities moving the finish line 100m further on while the teacher is busy watching the student run as fast as they can.

AQA GCSE English Language	Unit 1 is the examination. It can be sat in either January or June and is worth 40% (marked out of 80). There are two tiers of entry.
Higher	Grade A*	Grade A	Grade B	Grade C	Grade D	Grade E	Grade F	Grade G
Jan 2012	61	54	47	41	33	-	-	-
June 2012	61 (-)	55 (+1)	49 (+2)	44 (+3)	39 (+6)	-	-	-
Foundation	Grade A*	Grade A	Grade B	Grade C	Grade D	Grade E	Grade F	Grade G
Jan 2012	-	-	-	43	33	23	13	3
June 2012	-	-	-	53(+10)	41 (+8)	30 (+7)	19 (+6)	8 (+5)

AQA GCSE English Language	Unit 2 is Speaking and Listening. It is teacher assessed and marks are moderated by visiting examiners. Tasks are undertaken throughout the course. The marks can be submitted for either January or June cycles. A mark of 45 is awarded by the teacher, Unit 2 is worth 20% of the GCSE.
	Grade A*	Grade A	Grade B	Grade C	Grade D	Grade E	Grade F	Grade G
Jan 2012	41	37	31	25	20	15	11	7
June 2012	41 (-)	38 (+1)	33 (+2)	28 (+3)	23 (+3)	18 (+3)	13 (+2)	8 (+1)

 

AQA GCSE English Language	Unit 3 is Controlled Assessment. It is teacher assessed with a sample taken for external moderation. Tasks are undertaken throughout the course. The final folder comprises of four written pieces of work. Unit 3 is worth 40% of the GCSE. Folders may be submitted in either the January or June cycle. The same tasks were eligible for submission in Jan ’12 as June ’12. An overall mark out of 80 is submitted for the folder.
	Grade A*	Grade A	Grade B	Grade C	Grade D	Grade E	Grade F	Grade G
Jan 2012	72	64	53	43	34	25	16	7
June 2012	41 (-)	64 (-)	55 (+2)	46 (+3)	36 (+2)	27 (+2)	18 (+2)	9 (+2)

 

These charts reveal that a student sitting the Foundation exam in June of 2012 would have needed an additional 16 marks (7.8%) to secure an overall grade C than a student in the same cohort did in January 2012. Had the student’s teacher submitted their controlled assessment folder of work in January 2012 with a mark of 43, the student would have secured a C for Unit 3. In June, the same work in the same folder would earn them a D. The same is true of speaking and listening work. It is a fortunate student whose work was submitted in January instead of June. Same work, different outcome.

Please note. I have tried to be accurate here; it is possible I have made a mistake, but I don't think I have. One might be forgiven when you look at the sheer stupifying complexity of assessment of English at GCSE!

Key questions:

* Why was the change made and who authorised it?

* Is this change the same across all exam boards?

* Has any pressure been applied politically to bring down pass rates?

* Was a mistake made early in the year which required the thresholds to be adjusted to avoid a large increase in pass rate (if so, this hardly seems fair)?

* Was Mr Gove aware of this situation before today?

* Will Ofsted take this situation into account when deciding whether schools' attainment is worthy of one of their special categories?

Discuss...

Humbug!

Segregation by aspiration will not improve social mobility Mr Gove.

We live in complicated times. The old Blairite, statist, mantras of ‘accountability’, ‘targets’ and ‘strategies’ are seemingly being replaced with more abstract terms like ‘autonomy’, ‘progress measures’ and ‘reading lists’. The process of conversion to academy status is now becoming a common headache for school leaders across the country. The bold and ambitious jumped in straight away and will financially benefit the most, the more cautious and agnostic are dipping their toes, consulting and doing their sums, while the weak, determinedly opposed, scared or ‘categorised’ try to pretend it isn’t happening. Many hope that it will all simply go away, or that the government will fall before they find themselves the only ‘local authority’ school in the area. It is not a leap of zealous enthusiasm so much as an exercise in weary, wary pragmatism.

Meanwhile we have the mysterious case of the missing Admissions Code. Where is it? We had anticipated and expected a draft in advance of the Education Bill’s passage through parliament but it still has yet to see the light of day. In this shifting landscape, the seasoning, garnish and wording of Gove’s ‘Admissions Code 2.0’ could be of huge importance for those schools who would like to be able to select their students a little bit more (or at least send their own kids to 'their' Free School), just as much as it may be for those schools who would like some of their ‘competition’ to be able to covertly select students a little bit less. It is possible that the code is delayed because it has become something of a political football within the coalition. There is suspicion that the government hopes to introduce it quickly and quietly, perhaps over the summer, because it will weaken the powers of local authorities to control fair catchment areas and bandings. Until we see it, speculation will remain.

Like the old ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ sweetie sections in Woolworths, such an autonomous, market driven, system offers the attraction of choice and variety. There always did seem something deliciously egalitarian about the ability to choose your own weight and selection of sweets. For the record I was, and remain, a big fan of Jelly Babies. However, even as a child I recall a strange and sad stirring of sympathy for the left over Everton mints and hard boiled sweets no one ever seemed to want to add to their bag of treats. They didn’t even look like they wanted to be picked. Gove genuinely believes in autonomy and competitive self-determinism for schools as a means of widening social mobility. He appears to favour this as a more effective means of improving the perceptions (for it is that which is important in this culture war, not empirical or research-based realities) of state schooling among the middle classes than a return to, or expansion of, outright selection.

The shocking attrition (exclusion or drop out) rates, particularly among young black males, that were recently revealed to be the price of whatever successes the much lauded, funded and admired US ‘KIPP’ school system can claim, show just what is required to allow autonomy and self determinism to be seen to succeed. ‘Free’ or ‘charter’ schools have not invented a cure for the problems free access open schooling systems in western democracies face. They have been able to divest themselves of students who don’t play ball, or who don’t accept the systems they put in place. Any school would be able to point to improved results given the power to show reluctant or recalcitrant participants the door in large numbers. They can also be seen to do more with less money for precisely the same reason: the children they exclude are expensive and require a lot of additional time and support. Hard boiled sweets.

The consequent legacy of ‘attrition’ is ugly and has to be picked up by whatever schools these rejected students wind up in. There has to remain an authority to school, or at least contain, these children as best they can. You can see why schools currently mulling academy conversion fear a future in which they find themselves fulfilling this tricky societal role. What the Govian philosophy offers is not a solution for schooling; it is about enabling segregation by aspiration. And that is a tough philosophy to try and oppose. Who wants to appear to be the enemy of aspiration? Why shouldn’t the aspirant working and middle classes be given the chance to send their children to excellent schools? Shouldn’t we applaud the progress that some children from deprived backgrounds make in such schools?

Sometimes the temptation in social policy is to become obsessed with the solution without fully understanding the problem. The need for school reform should always be driven by a relentless desire to improve standards and outcomes for the largest number of children. There can be no aim more aspirational than that. Most objective analyses of standards in UK schools over the last twenty years conclude that standards have been consistently rising in most key areas (despite the government’s persistent, deliberate and egregious misuse of PISA data in a tawdry attempt to trash the modest achievements of the Labour years). The enduring question mark over that progress and improvement is the continued belief, regardless of any serious research or inquiry which might prove otherwise, that exams are easier, grades have been inflated and that standards of teaching and student behaviour are far worse than, well...‘back in the day’.

Only a fool would try to claim that British schools are perfect. Inequalities and inadequacies persist. The continued existence of state funded faith schools skew intakes and allow covert selection to take place in many parts of the country, particularly urban centres. A few backward counties still persist with academic selection at eleven years old and, despite big improvements in recent years, too many schools are still found by Ofsted to be providing inadequate provision. Bad teachers still blight too many classrooms and the systems for removing them and for developing/sharing the best practice in teaching and learning are not robust or developed enough. This combined with the eagerness of a relentlessly negative and largely right wing media to ‘expose’ occasional examples of bad practice, poor judgement or gross misconduct and portray them as endemic and commonplace system-failures, means that those of us who see much virtue in our schools, and in the expertise and skills of our teachers, have a tough sell. Those whose ideologies have always been in favour of academic selection and in opposition to comprehensive education, or whose priorities are unashamedly elitist and self serving, have a much easier job. Their solutions, therefore, are often more attractive at first glance.

What is happening in schools at the moment is akin to a disorganised and hungry rush at the pick and mix counter. Budgets are down, redundancies are on the up, the admissions code is missing, the rhetoric from the top is often ugly and in today’s climate nobody wants to find themselves left scooping up the hard boiled sweets.

But they need us the most.

Raising standards - it's a PISA cake!

Several years ago, before many in this country had heard of it, I used to bang on to friends about PISA. It came onto my radar after I helped run a German exchange visit in 2004 and found it to be the 'hot topic' of debate amongst German teachers. The 2000 PISA statistics had been a big story in Germany because they had come 23rd out of the 28 OECD countries who had participated that year (England came 8th, but you wouldn't have heard about that because it was good news). In the 2009 figures, Germany have scored a statistically significantly increase in their performance. I'm sure that the German authorities will be pleased to see an improvement which is worthy of note, although they may temper that with some concern that they still rank only 18th internationally - if they are still paying attention.

In his hilariously pompous speech to the Education World Forum this month, Michael Gove made reference to this German experience and again (just as he, David Cameron and Nick Clegg do in their forewords to the 2010 White Paper) cited PISA as evidence that education standards in the UK have 'plummeted' since 2000. 'These are facts from which we cannot hide' he trumpeted.

FACT, Mr Gove? Facts? David Brent of 'The Office', Dickens' pedagogical terrorist Thomas Gradgrind and a litany of promising political careers have all come unstuck through a careless over reliance upon that outwardly 'rigorous' but damnably slippery concept. The statistical fact is that the OECD have been very clear that 'no trend comparisons are possible' when comparing UK PISA data from 2000 with that of 2006 or 2009. Whilst the (statistically comparable) 2006 and 2009 data does show a small decline, the OECD analysis table does not classify that decline as being statistically significant. So the fact appears to be that the premise upon which the White Paper is introduced by the Prime Minister and his Deputy are somewhat questionable to say the least.

Whilst all this is very important to point out given the radical nature of the changes Mr Gove seeks to justify as a solution, there is a very obvious and important trap in highlighting this statistical, and politically motivated dishonesty. The fact is that, however spun, nobody involved in education should be pleased with, or satisfied by, an international study which places us 23rd in the OECD in terms of attainment. Gove is correct in asserting that PISA shows us that standards need to be improved. He is not factually correct in asserting that PISA shows us that standards significantly declined under Labour.

So this presents a challenge to those of us who don't share or recognise Gove's narrative of state school failure and decline. We must place a relentless focus on standards at the heart of any opposition to Conservative curriculum or school reforms. We must accept the essential inclusion of core knowledge within any planned curriculum whilst defending passionately the importance of skills and contemporary relevance (I don't shy away from that word, it does matter) to the content and focus of our courses and qualifications. We must not allow the right to dominate the territory of academic ambition and rigour, portraying the comprehensive ideal as lying in opposition to all that is meritocratic and aspirational. Quite the opposite. We must fight reductive, discredited and old fashioned ideas with broad and brave counter proposals. Labour must enter the next election with a clear and reforming policy agenda designed to strengthen the comprehensive and inclusive ideals of open access schooling, combined with a new approach to qualifications and assessment which will restore the public faith in our examinations system. I am convinced that the public will see more merit in such an approach when contrasted with the dour, mean and tedious agenda on offer from the present government, that which Simon Jenkins this week brilliantly dubbed the 'Govian Paradox' of 'a dictatorship of Liberty, a free market in doing what we are told'.

Want to set schools free but want to tell them which battles and books to teach? Want to equip young people to compete in a changing global economy but primarily want them to understand our 'island story'? Want schools to do more with less whilst opening new schools in areas with surplus places? It's the Govian knot - anything but a PISA cake!

Well dumb, I mean DONE, Year 11.

The annual ‘debate’ over whether or not examinations are easier now than they have been in the past is so much more personal and class driven than commentators and politicians acknowledge.

Intelligent thinkers and observers around this issue all share one common trait; they have all been to school and sat an exam. Indeed it would be safe to posit that the vast majority of those whose opinions reach the largest media audience did so very successfully. High achieving individuals have a tendency to view their time at school with understandable pride. For most, by definition, it must have been a period of high self esteem and reward. Just as one balks at imagining a former partner ever scaling the heights of pleasure and bliss they shared when coupled with you, it can be equally hard to imagine a younger generation thinking, working and learning as well or better than you once did. It is inherently threatening to imagine a brighter and better motivated generation snapping at your heels. For many the ocular proof of said generation’s ignorance and indolence is evident any time one catches a bus, wanders down a high street or tunes in to Big Brother. For some it stands to reason, it stands to COMMON SENSE, that this generation are feeble, spoilt and cosseted in ways in which we never were.

Except that the evidence rather contradicts this analysis every August. Pass rates have a tedious habit of rising, as more and more students seem to be attaining the highest grades. For many, the logical explanation for this puzzling dichotomy between perception and reality can only be that the exams are easier, that a political desire to show improved results has somehow led to a conspiracy to undermine and devalue the qualifications we once strived so hard to attain.

It isn’t difficult to find popularly acceptable evidence to support this viewpoint if you dig around a little. Journalists and television crews have placed old O Level papers in front of GCSE students and taken their bafflement as evidence of the ‘inferiority’ of the new qualification on many occasions. The use of calculators in modern exams is commonly held up as clear evidence of a drop in mathematical standards. Mental arithmetic is frequently the preferred measure of ‘ability’ in numeracy in such media analyses, even if it is of limited contemporary day to day or even academic application. Science papers come in for particular stick when multiple choice questions are used, despite such questions usually being ‘knowledge’ as opposed to ‘skills’ focused (educational conservatives tend to lend primacy to the former).

Curriculums change over time, and the shifting emphases will please some and enrage others. No doubt a student in 2010 will very likely be baffled by much of the terminology used and skills required in an equivalent (very roughly - O Levels were a different beast to the GCSE, a fact rarely acknowledged when comparing like with like) exam from 1960, just as a 65 year will old struggle to meet the requirements of many elements of their grandchild’s paper. Such experiments are silly and near impossible to conduct under objective and meaningful controlled conditions. Different generations would be totally lost in the pedagogical landscape of each other’s classrooms. Times change, requirements shift, and accepting that more teachers and students are working harder and smarter than may have been the case in the past is an anathema to many of a reactionary or conservative persuasion. So the argument rumbles on. Standards have fallen because I believe them to have done so, I can prove it because I knew x at their age, and they now don’t. The fact that I don’t know y is irrelevant because I’ve done very well thank you very much without knowing y, and don’t get me started on behaviour…

Where I do have some sympathy is in the question of whether an A grade is of the same distinguishing value to higher education when 27% of students sitting the paper achieve it as opposed to 10%. There is a case to be made for distinguishing between the very highest achievers in a cohort, if for no other reason than to enable universities to ensure that they are accepting the very best candidates. This year the first A level students will achieve the new A* grade. I doubt that you will hear very much about this, because it is a measure introduced to address just the issue which has the right frothing at the mouth. It plays better to the galleries to point to the (likely) rise in overall A grades and to repeat the insulting attacks on students and educational professionals ad nauseum. To achieve an A* a student needs to score over 90% in both modules of their final A Level year, and at least 80% total across both years of study (including the controversial ‘AS’ examination so hated by Mr Gove). This should provide those who seek to identify the true elite a means of doing so and will be a useful marker of the absolute best students.

The argument tends towards a frustration at so many more students doing well, as if earning top grades were something which we should only encourage in a very small number of people. This notion is elitist and deeply conservative when one exercises the art of deep thought around it (you see, I have been listening Mr Gove). However, those of us who are cheered each year by rises in results among young people should also be cautious. The climate of fear and competition created by league tables will have no doubt helped to drive these improvements in attainment (conservatives seem to have little understanding of, or interest in, the effect this process has had upon state schools). For this reason alone to dismiss targets and competition out of hand is foolish.

The question should be whether the pursuit of higher examination attainment alone is enough. Such a debate should be the real driver to delivering a better skilled and more effective generation of young people. As long as the examination stakes are as high as they are for schools and young people (witness the thousands of young people who will not receive a university place this year as a result of the coalition government), the tendency to coach and hothouse will be in place. Mr Gove may change the mode and language of assessment to one he deems ‘harder’, or one that he feels will better credit knowledge and the acquisition of facts, but schools will still do everything they possibly can up to, and sometimes beyond, cheating in order to protect their statistics. And when we allow the statistics to drive and conclude the debate, we are all at risk of truly having been ‘dumbed down’.

It's all a question of Gove and take.

So I haven't proven to be a terribly consistent blogger I'm afraid. I can only plead mitigating circumstances in defence of the nine month interregnum between posts. A new job, a pregnant wife, an Ofsted inspection and a coalition government. Only one of these things could have been reliably predicted in September.

But as the primary focus of this blog was always to be education and pedagogy, let me try and focus this post on my thoughts post election. The landscape has shifted, we are under new management, and the next decade of learning and teaching in British schools is going to be very different to the last ten years of 'strategy' and consultant led centralisation.

Around September time I found myself engaged in a spirited exchange of correspondence with the now much more ubiquitous Toby Young. In a rare fit of pique I had responded, perhaps rashly, to an article he had written in the Observer about his desire/intention to set up a school in the style of the Swedish 'free school' system in his corner of London.

From: spencerrichard1979@hotmail.comTo: howtolose@hotmail.comSubject: HelpDate: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:38:56 +0000

Sir,

Can you explain to me how a 'comprehensive grammar' would manage to solve the need to raise access, achievement and well being in working class children and, by definition, how existing comprehensive schools and academies are failing? If you seek to embrace an 'inclusive philosophy', then surely everyone in Acton will have access to your Utopian dream? Or will it become a cosy ghetto for you and your middle class friends?

The best thing about the political landscape of the 1970s was that it was honest. The left and right had clearly defined goals and constituencies. You and the other Cameronites are so intellectually dishonest it is staggering. Your aims are not inclusive, but very much exclusive. You seem to have very little grasp of educational philosophy other than a very simplistic notion that Grammar = rigour and excellence / Comprehensive = mediocrity and failure. As an educationalist I wouldn't dream of pretending to know how best to run a hospital, a military campaign or a legal chambers. What then, qualifies you to establish a school in your own image?

Can I suggest that you stop agonising. It is clear that you want the best for your children, and that you fear sending them to the local state school will not furnish them with the best odds of success. You are wrong, but you are entitled to make that choice (although I would ask you to carefully consider the impact of people making that choice has upon the success and viability of state schools in your part of London). What could be truly dangerous is peddling the patent lie that allowing middle class parents to set up schools in their own vision (I presume you are also happy with mosques, churches and temples doing the same?)will somehow raise the bar for the most socially disadvantaged children. That isn't what you really want is it? You'd like to be able to segregate your children from these sections of society without calling upon your wealth and privilege to do so. The current government has betrayed many progressive principles through its education policy of late, although at least it has retained a stated intention to promote inclusion and to raise standards for all.

If you believe in streaming children from a young age and a three tier education system, then
go for it. Wave the flag for that model, which has many strengths and many enlightened and erudite proponents. In the meantime, perhaps visit some of the most successful comprehensive schools and join in the debate as to how and why they succeed in providing a well rounded, rigorous and inclusive experience for a range of students from diverse backgrounds. These schools (and there are thousands of them) follow many of the paths and practices which I suspect your 'comprehensive grammar' notion would seek to emulate.

Articles like yours do so much damage to a system which suffers from the ceaseless barrage of armchair experts. Your own experiences in the 1970s do not make you an expert. Having an educationalist for a father doesn't either. Visiting a few schools and consulting some serious research around the contemporary debates in education might.
Richard Spencer

Now, ok, I was angry and somewhat intemperate in my expression. But I stand by what I wrote, and feel justified in holding up the whole 'comprehensive grammar' piffle for the oxymoronic tripe it so self evidently is.

I won't (and probably legally can't!) betray Toby's confidence by publishing the exchange which followed. Suffice to say he was charming and persuasive in his defence, but in the final analysis was happy to claim to be an 'unashamed elitist'. It is this phrase on which I think I'd like to hang my commentary on the philosophy which is in the ascendancy in the Govian present.

Whatever crimes Labour was guilty of in their handling of Education (and despite being a card carrying and unbowed Labourite, I am perfectly happy to accept that they are multifarious and occasionally heinous), with the exception Ruth Kelly's brief and depressing period in charge, I always had the sense that the core values and intentions of policy makers were essentially progressively sound. This provided some small comfort in moments of anger and indignation at the dunderheaded pronouncements and data-insanity which punctuated so many of New Labour's education policies.

The new tone was set within just four hours of the formation of the coalition and the appointment of Michael Gove as Secretary of State. With the ink literally still drying on the Faustian pact the Liberals entered into with so many whey faced smiles, Gove immediately and summarily excised the 'Children and Families' elements of his brief. Within four hours the garish 'rainbow optimism' desktop theme of the DCSF website had been replaced with an 'austerity blue' background, and the somewhat sinister warning that all content 'may not represent current government policy'. This was the 'Department of Education' and Michael Gove meant business.

And so it has proven. GTC gone, BECTA gone, QCDA on its way. Diplomas withering on their feeble vine (Pity Tomlinson and his brave, lost vision). The bulldozer excitedly looming over many of the foundation blocks of Curriculum 2000. The Secondary national strategy (check out the yellow health warning at the top!) busily 'legacy planning'. The apparatus of New Labour's centralised approach is being dismantled in a bonfire of the educationalists. PGCE is under threat (Gove has publicy stated teaching is a 'craft' which requires an apprenticeship). While the 'art of deep thought' is the desired sunlit academic upland of the Govtopian future, the 'craft of quick cuts' appears to be the reductive and ideological reality of his approach to governing.

And all this without mention of the Academies Bill. My own school found itself on a published list of schools 'seeking Academy status' which Gove excitedly published (within mere days of announcing the policy and writing to schools) as evidence of the popular clamour to attain this cherished bauble of freedom from state oppression. In reality we are extremely wary of the move, and simply expressed a desire for more information out of fear of being left behind in the nervous and unseemly rush. Spin the fear, grease the engines of rapid, cost effective (?), change.

And then we have the extermination of BSF in the most attention grabbing move he has made so far. There has been a rearguard action to highlight the inefficiencies and cost of the programme, but the axing of it means we have lost the best chance we've had in a generation to replace so many of the asbestos riddled, leaky, cold and poorly designed shacks we still educate our children in. In defence we are told in sombre tones that the quality of the experience in the classroom, of the teaching, is of primary importance. No doubt all true, but a three star meal served up in a pig sty would still likely give me indigestion. I'd like to see Mr Gove teach a five period day in the asbestos building which I teach in and tell me that the extreme heat/cold (delete depending upon time of year and whether or not the boiler has packed up for the umpteenth time) has no impact on learning. One only has to spend time in France, Germany or Scandinavia to witness that we offer up uniquely shitty environments to support teaching and learning in this country. It is poor now - in five years it could degenerate to the level of national disgrace.

And all this is of course due to Labour's profligacy. Of course there is no ideological strain evident in this process at all. We regret the need to terminate all the attendant public and private sector jobs which the gleeful Gove's posturing will result in. Clearly the cutting of capital spending projects will have no impact on the private sector or raise unemployment in the wider economy. Obviously any spending undertaken by the Labour government was done so out of a wicked and wilful desire to destroy the British economy and leave it ready for Sharia law. Ok, I need to calm down. But I think you can see my own ideological fury emerging quite clearly enough.

Few teachers or education professionals will weep at the loss of the GTC (what did it ever really achieve?). Some will miss BECTA (I count myself among their number), while most will grudgingly accept that in the context of cuts to non essential services it may have run its course. The ideological case can be made for any of these cuts as long as you are prepared to accept the reality of living without them.

The teaching profession looks as if it may, just about, accept the case for a two year pay freeze. However the popular, media and political rhetoric against our pensions, working conditions and practice has been noticeably dark since the new government took power.

So, before I bring this unashamedly self righteous polemic to a close, let me return to the 'unashamedly elitist' badge Toby Young so proudly wore. His school now looks like becoming a reality. I now interpret what he meant by that phrase differently to how I did back in September. They (the government and the West London Cameroonians) are the elite now. They have their ideology, they are determined to see it through, and they are unashamed. The politically awkward details and the progressive heart of the public sector may eventually provide the Achilles' heel, but for now they are the masters and we the public servants.


There may be trouble ahead. But while the sun is shining, our (below inflation) pay rises are assured for September, and the cuts to come aren't yet casting our teaching and administrative assistants onto the dole queues, we can just about still pretend that the core 'coalition' values are sound and that those nice Liberals will take the edge off the nasty party in power. Stay tuned progressives!

Below is my latest article to be published in NATE News on the revised criteria for Ofsted lesson observations. Enjoy!

English (and Ofsted) at the Crossroads.

Phillip Jarret, HMI and Specialist Subject Adviser to Ofsted for English visited NATE council this September to introduce his team’s latest evaluation of English teaching in England. This article takes a look at the report and considers how far its findings are reflected in the new criteria for lesson observations used by Ofsted.

The recent report from Ofsted on the current state of English teaching, ‘English at the Crossroads’ should be essential reading for all NATE members. The report offers a stimulating and relevant appraisal of recent trends, as well as thoughtful and sometimes inspirational examples of good practice as case studies. To read a centrally produced document which takes such a qualitative approach is genuinely refreshing in a world in which English teachers increasingly need to be expert statisticians in order to defend their practice and their records.

I was intrigued to hear Phillip Jarret, HMI and Specialist Subject Adviser for English, Ofsted, speak about his report at NATE council in London last month. He presented the report with passion and with the obvious weight of expertise which one always hopes for from Ofsted. I found myself agreeing vigorously with his calls for the DCSF to help the most challenging schools recruit and retain effective teachers, for improved subject plans along with clearer curricular targets within schools as well as more consistent and effective marking of work. He identifies a need for independent learning opportunities (reading for pleasure anyone?) in the English curriculum, and for the quality and focus of homework to be improved. He also had some very interesting observations to make about the ways in which the most successful schools had embraced APP (Assessing Pupils’ Progress) as a tracking system and planning tool, rather than as simply a series of short assessment tasks. In short, there is something in the report to stir the interest of any English teacher, and the section on ‘Leadership and Management’ should be required reading for all subject leaders.

As a subject leader with an Ofsted inspection looming myself, I was intrigued to know how far the findings of this report have permeated down and helped inform the revised lesson observation criteria for section five inspections. Having recently observed a ‘Satisfactory’ English lesson as part of a mock Ofsted inspection which, by general agreement, would have been judged ‘Good’ under the old criteria, I am deeply concerned by some of the implications of the strong emphasis on evidencing ‘progress’ in the new observation criteria. The lesson in question was the fourth lesson my colleague had delivered to her new Year 7 English class in September. They were studying ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, and were at the early stages of exploring the style, genre and plot of their class reader. We observed the first forty minutes of the hour long lesson before retiring to ‘make judgements’ or, if you prefer, reflect and share our perspectives. I was told by our visiting expert (a former English teacher) that the main reason my colleague should be judged ‘satisfactory’ was that there had been no reference to progression through the NC levels made in the early stages of the lesson. This was despite the fact that such references were a feature of her plan, and that explicit reference was to be drawn to this in the plenary (which we never saw). When I raised this point in her defence, I was told that the focus should be ‘relentless’ in terms of evidencing and referencing how students can progress. In all other areas, the visiting expert was full of praise for the lesson and for my colleague. Fair enough, you may think. But are we really at the stage where English teachers should mention levels or grades in the opening ten minutes of a lesson or face being damned as merely ‘satisfactory’? Is this ‘good’ practice anyway?

Thinking back to the excellent advice, for example on marking and feedback, in ‘English at the Crossroads’, there seemed to be something of a conflict here. I write not as someone with any particular axe to grind against the existence of Ofsted, or against inspections in general, but as a subject leader with a genuine fear that the new criteria are going to be looking for a language of assessment and an approach to pedagogy which is at odds with accepted good practice in our subject. We are told that Ofsted inspectors may only ‘drop in’ to a lesson under the new style of inspections. This visit may be as brief as ten minutes, and the implications of my particular experience (which may not be representative) is that teachers may need to make sure that they reference grade/level progression at some point in those ten minutes to stand a chance of being judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. I asked Phillip about how far he felt section five inspectors would be aware of the findings and recommendations of his report, and his answer concerned me. There seems to be no way of telling whether inspectors are aware of the report’s recommendations, and very little link up between the work of the subject advisers and the section five inspection teams. I was depressed to hear him admit how rarely he sees speaking and listening lessons delivered when he inspects English teams; not because speaking and listening isn’t taking place, but because teachers have learned all too painfully that the type of reductive measures used to judge teaching and learning such as those I describe above can be harshly applied in the context of a classroom with a focus on oracy as a measurable skill.

The danger of the current inspection regime, it seems to me, is that delivering a reading lesson, for example, may not be an option many teachers would feel comfortable taking when faced with an Ofsted inspector. Is it perhaps far safer to focus on a lesson which explores one or two specific writing skills which can be wrapped up and exemplified in the study of some gobbet of text, mapped to the Assessment Focus and corresponding level ladder of the day, and churned out by the end of the lesson? The problem we face as English teachers (although it is surely not one unique to our subject) is that progress is not typically measurable in ten minute chunks. Progress should be central to all that we teach in English, but it is about something far less quantifiable than the ‘drop in’ style of lesson observation will ever be able to adequately identify. Anyone who ever fell in love with our subject knows that the breakthrough moments, the shining hours of pleasure in hearing a wonderful teacher read to you, and the life affirming confidence of knowing that you can finally express yourself adequately using our language, is more than an inspector can measure by employing such a methodology. Having heard Phillip Jarret speak to council, it seems he understands this (I wish he’d been my English teacher). His targeted subject inspections seem more thorough and considered, more contextual in their findings than whole school section five inspections can be. I’m just afraid that my colleague – and she’s a great teacher, never mind good – will carry with her that rather hollow and joyless advice she received this September and seek to be ‘relentless’ in the pursuit of ‘progress’, perhaps at the expense of the students’ pleasure and excellent or inspirational teaching.