Ofsted today published its state of the nation annual report. Geographic inequalities in attainment featured prominently: “There are 16 local authority areas in England where less than 60% of the children attend good or outstanding secondary schools, have lower than national GCSE attainment and make less than national levels of expected progress. All but three [...]
Schools prepare students for the qualifications that they believe will help them get on in life, within the constraints of a National Curriculum set by politicians. But they do so with one eye on the accountability measures by which the school itself will be judged. No government has ever been as active as the Coalition [...]
In all the recent debate over grammar schools, a sizeable group of critics has argued that they do nothing for social mobility. So why do we not hear so many voices standing up for a group of institutions that can do something about it? These institutions are those in the further education (FE) sector. And [...]
The TES reported that Pupil Premium funding for higher attaining disadvantaged pupils may be redistributed in order to give extra support to lower attaining pupils. While such a move might be in the spirit of the Pupil Premium to reduce attainment gaps, data suggests that higher attaining disadvantaged pupils still need additional support to keep [...]
So A-level General Studies will be no longer be available after 2016. As Ofqual have been reforming A-levels so-called “soft” subjects such as home economics and now General Studies have been dropped. But are some current A-levels really easier or harder than others? In this blogpost, we look at national attainment in 2014 in five [...]
Secondary schools can now download the marks achieved by each of their new year 7 pupils in every question from the 2015 Key Stage 2 tests. Even better, this data can be imported into RAISEonline so that analysis of test performance can be undertaken for a year group, class or individual pupil broken down by [...]
So you’ll get your GCSE results on Thursday. They’ll show that you’ve done really well. Have you decided what you’re going to do next? Has your school got a sixth form? Are your grades good enough? Are there any Colleges nearby? What do they offer? Now imagine you come and live with me in South [...]
Over the weekend the Daily Mail reported on plans to open the first new Grammar School in 50 years. The arguments for and against Grammar Schools as agents of educational improvement and social mobility will doubtless be rehearsed with even greater vigour in the coming months. In this blog we look at whether private tuition [...]
From time to time the use of significance tests for school performance indicators in RAISEonline is called into question. If school cohorts are not independent, random samples then surely we should not be using significance tests that assume independent, random samples right? Well, yes and no. If we want to make causal statements (i.e. that [...]
