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 [...]
The decision to allow a new grammar school to open in Kent drew a lot of media attention recently. With the exception of grammar schools, state schools in England are required to admit children irrespective of their ability. A number of developed countries do have school systems, however, which select children into different-ability schools at [...]
For the last three weeks myself and twelve post-graduates who are studying Creative Writing around the UK have been immersing ourselves in dragons, bears, vampires and ghosts. No, we haven’t been overdosing on Netflix, we have been judging the creative writing of 11 year olds in what we think is the largest experiment ever of [...]
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 [...]
Since our launch eight months ago, Education Datalab has completed research on school admissions and selection, teacher careers, pupil premium gaps and individual pupil attainment trajectories. But we have written more about secondary school accountability than any other topic. This is, perhaps, not surprising, given the enormous changes in the qualification and accountability regimes currently [...]
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 [...]
The arguments for and against grammar schools are well rehearsed. Grammar schools provide a good education for those who get to attend - I think the best guess in the literature is that they experience gains in the order of 1 grade in 4 of their best 8 GCSE exams. This isn’t a huge impact, [...]
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 [...]
