England’s schools segregate by ability more than almost every other country in the world
Comparing rates of setting and grouping by ability to those of other nations
Is PISA still a fair basis for comparison? Some serious questions have emerged
A version of this blogpost also appears on the Centre for Education Economics website. The OECD's PISA study compares the science, reading and mathematics skills of 15-year-olds across countries, with the results closely watched by journalists, public policymakers and the general public from across the world. Conducted every three years, particular attention is now being [...]
Four things PISA tells us about after-school learning
A version of this blogpost also appears on the Sutton Trust website. When the PISA results are released, almost everyone is fixated upon the average scores children have achieved in reading, science and mathematics, and our latest position in the “international rankings”. However, a lot of other information is captured within the study, some of [...]
Why does Vietnam do so well in PISA? An example of why naive interpretation of international rankings is such a bad idea
A version of this post was first published in Research Intelligence, the British Educational Research Association’s termly magazine. When the PISA 2015 results were released in December last year, Vietnam was one of the countries that stood out as doing remarkably well. (PISA is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s triennial assessment of 15-year-olds [...]
What PISA tells us about pupils from ordinary working families
Last week, we heard a lot from the government about their interest in children from ‘ordinary working families’. (For our initial take on the topic, see here and here.) In its new consultation document, the Department for Education has provided information on the GCSE grades and progress of these children – defined as those not [...]
Global Gaps: Comparing socio-economic gaps in the performance of highly able UK pupils internationally
Today the Sutton Trust have published Global Gaps, a report I produced for them considering gaps in performance between highly able disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged children, using PISA 2015 data Read the full report here [PDF]. A blogpost on some of the findings can be found here.
What does PISA 2015 tell us about deprivation and highly able children?
There’s long been interest in socio-economic inequalities in educational achievement in England. Typically, most research in this area focuses on differences in average scores. Less attention has been paid to young people at the extremes of the distribution – for instance, how achievement varies between the most able pupils from advantaged and disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. [...]