Final Key Stage 2 data has been published this morning, with 665 primary schools identified as being below the floor standards, compared to 676 last year. In line with the move to scaled scores, the way floor standards are calculated changed this year. Schools were judged as being below the floor standard if they failed [...]
We recently submitted evidence to the Education Select Committee, as part of their inquiry into primary assessment. What follows is the text of our submission. A PDF copy of the submission can be found here. The role of statutory assessment in primary schools Assessment plays numerous roles in primary education. Statutory assessment should, as a minimum, ensure [...]
Education Datalab recently contributed evidence to the Education Select Committee's inquiry into primary assessment. Among the points made by Datalab are that: using assessment for curriculum compliance must be done with care; we need a reliable age five baseline assessment; teacher assessment should not be used in statutory assessment; a simpler floor standard would be fairer and [...]
One criticism of the current Progress 8 measure is that the points awarded to some qualifications are more (or less) favourable than to others. There is a risk that any inequality in the way different qualifications are valued incentivises schools to pursue those treated more favourably at the expense of working to improve grades awarded [...]
Today, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development releases results from the 2015 round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Despite the ‘country rankings’ taking the headlines, there are many other - and often more interesting - findings once you scratch below the surface. In this blogpost, I provide a crash-course in 10 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
