Since the government’s announcement that it wants to see the return of more widespread selectivity to England’s education system we have written quite extensively about grammar schools and the impact of selectivity. In this post, however, we’re going to step back a little and offer a more descriptive overview of the existing network of selective [...]
Jurgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool FC, has been in the game of football long enough to know that making predictions about winning the Premier League is unhelpful. In an interview with Goal, his thoughts were measured as usual: “The main thing is that we actually think about ourselves: ‘Yeah, we are quite a good [...]
This post was updated at 8.30 AM on 22 November. An earlier draft of the piece had originally been posted in error. What is the reasoning behind the government’s proposal for more selective schools: greater choice or better schools? Numerous studies have demonstrated that both have flawed foundations, including from the Education Policy Institute [PDF] and ourselves [PDF], [...]
We have written previously about how the points awarded to the European Computer Driving Licence in school performance tables appeared to be out-of-kilter with other qualifications, given the grades achieved by ECDL entrants in GCSEs they took. And Data Educator has subsequently written more on the topic. (To give it its full title, we’re talking about [...]
We have previously examined the extent to which pupils leave the roll of state-funded mainstream secondary schools. In this post, we look at one of the destinations of pupils who leave the roll of a state-funded mainstream school: the independent sector. (Today Ofsted has spoken out about unregistered alternative provision. To be clear, all of [...]
There are striking differences in the propensity of different ethnic groups to gain access to grammar schools. If we look at high achieving eleven-year-olds in the four fully selective local authorities of Kent, Medway, Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire, just 29 per cent of the white British pupils who achieved a fine grade score of 5.0 on [...]
The National Association of Secondary Moderns might soon be growing its membership. By how much? It is hard to say, not least because not all non-grammar schools in selective areas choose to call themselves secondary moderns (just 117 do). Also, there are schools outside selective areas that are heavily affected by the presence of a [...]
From this year, the secondary school accountability framework will be predominately based around a single value added measure, Progress 8, although a small number of headline attainment indicators will be published alongside it. However, there is no single equivalent measure for primary schools. Three value added (VA) measures have been calculated in reading, writing and maths. [...]
Will more training in moderation for Key Stage 2 writing, announced by Justine Greening yesterday, help reduce the inequities that were highlighted in a recent blogpost on Key Stage 2 writing? Sadly, the evidence suggests otherwise. If you look through the literature on examination standards over the last 20 years, you will find references through [...]
