Most of the time our work involves using the National Pupil Database to examine particular aspects of the education system. However, it can also throw up interesting insights into the state of the nation more generally. Last year, we wrote about how the percentage of pupils eligible for and claiming free school meals (FSM) had [...]
Latest DfE statistics show that there were almost 16,000 pupils on-roll at pupil referral units, and another 22,000 in other local authority alternative provision in January 2017 [XLS, table 1b]. These are pupils whose education is paid for by the state but who do not have places at state-funded mainstream or special schools. The different [...]
Ofsted yesterday announced its response to the consultation it ran this summer on its short inspections policy. The inspectorate had proposed extending from 48 hours, to 15 days, the window in which a full inspection must take place after a short inspection converts. But it has now opened another consultation [PDF] that proposes that from [...]
How well do schools’ value added (VA) scores at Key Stage 1 correlate with their value added scores at Key Stage 2? Do schools with high scores on one tend to achieve a high score on the other? Or do schools with low VA scores at KS1 tend to achieve high VA scores at KS2? [...]
Is it proportionate for schools with a good inspection rating to receive inspections the same in length and scope to those received by schools which had exhibited weaknesses in the recent past? That, in short, was the thinking when new, short inspections for schools with good ratings were introduced by Sir Michael Wilshaw in September [...]
Figures came out recently that showed that the proportion of children eligible for free school meals (FSM) was at its lowest level since 2001 [PDF], when pupil-level information on this was first collected nationally. This is likely to be for a combination of reasons: an economy that has improved since the early 2010s, meaning fewer parents [...]
Last Thursday at the Festival of Education, Sam Sims and I presented new research from our forthcoming book, The Teacher Gap, on the small number of schools that appear to be knowingly running a recruit-burnout-replace staffing model. The talk was written up by Schools Week and you can read the whole story of these teachers [...]
Update, 24 May 2017, 13:14: Schools Week have reported that the Conservatives are distancing themselves from the £60m figure. One of the more eye-catching proposals in the Conservatives’ manifesto was the plan to drop universal infant free schools meals (UIFSMs) and bring in free breakfasts for all primary pupils [PDF]. While no further details were [...]
This is part two in a series of posts exploring trends in attainment over time by month of birth. Other posts in the series can be found here. In the first part in this series we looked at how attainment at age seven – Key Stage 1 – varied with pupils’ month of birth. Overall, [...]
