Education Datalab turned two this spring and to mark the event we gathered together with the great and the good of teaching, education research and policy-making for a celebratory party. Our event, kindly hosted by Impetus-Private Equity Foundation, was themed “We can reform…education…without the policy makers” and our four invited panel members made a pitch, in their own personal and unique style, to do just that.

Audience voted for their preferred proposal. Daisy Christodoulou pleaded for teachers to immediately ditch marking in favour of comparative judgement. Laura McInerney proposed instructional rounds (as practiced by the medical profession) take the place of lesson observations. Tom Sherrington boldly pitched for all teachers and leaders to sign up to a solemn pact of non-compliance to any policy not backed up with evidence in his WEEP, CLAP, LAUGH or CRY Policy.

But Jonathan Simons won the day, with his radical rally cry for schools to simply ignore OFSTED.  After all, what could they do if everyone rebelled? Thanks to our panel, the greatest educational-figureheads-not-from-government guiding us, we had forged our own way and now knew what direction to take. Very helpful with yet another purdah just ahead of us.

Thank you our hosts, panel, and all our guests, who helped mark the occasion of our birthday with great humour and passion.

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