Since National Curriculum levels were removed, secondary schools have been scrabbling around to establish an alternative, hopefully better, way to assess at key stage 3. Most (from what I have seen) have failed. And while it is easy to criticise crass approaches such as the reinvention of flight paths using GCSE grades, it is fair … Continue reading A simple model for KS3 Assessment
Could do better: raising the bar for school improvement
If I were to write a report on our efforts over the years to master the subject of school improvement, I might choose similar words to those (above) once levelled against me. Our thinking on the matter is generally lacking in substance and untidy. And given the high stakes accountability framework we have created, an … Continue reading Could do better: raising the bar for school improvement
From description to prescription
It is inevitable that waves will rise and fall. What is not known is the form each will take, at least until they begin to take shape. There is an emerging narrative that a switch from teacher evaluation to teacher development is required. The backlash against teacher evaluation began some years ago with calls to … Continue reading From description to prescription
Getting the measure of a school
In a humble cafe, at the corner of a street, sat a young man and his young lady. In front of the young man sat a pile of papers which contained year's of carefully collected data. The young man's task was to determine the best restaurant in the country. He had set about this task … Continue reading Getting the measure of a school
Curating the canon
What should we consider to be legitimate professional knowledge, and who gets to decide? These are the questions raised by a stimulating paper released by the Confederation of School Trusts this week titled 'Communities of Improvement: School Trusts as fields of practice'. To my mind, the paper is a must read for anyone interested in … Continue reading Curating the canon
Standards deviation
What seems normal now may one day appear peculiar. And many contemporary oddities will become the norm. Yet in the moment we are not very good at predicting which will be which. Education, and schools in particular, suffer this mallady. For example, about 70 years ago it was generally accepted that there was a natural … Continue reading Standards deviation
Fitter, happier, more productive…
As we lurch into a half term break, many of us a little shell shocked and depleted, we contemplate the use of our precious time. For many, the priority will be to recharge. For a while we need to just 'be'; to avoid structure, goals, and requirement. The unwinding of body and mind is necessary … Continue reading Fitter, happier, more productive…
Everyday mechanisms
People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion - an illusion of explanatory depth.Rozenblit and Keil, 2002 How does a toilet work? I am confident that I have a fairly good idea. If asked, I would rate my confidence at … Continue reading Everyday mechanisms
Can we make our schools anti-fragile?
Over the last 18 months, I have been co-authoring a new book with Becky Allen and Ben White. It is about educational fads. More broadly, it is about why it is so difficult to improve the school system. The time we spent researching and developing our ideas generated far too much content to fit in … Continue reading Can we make our schools anti-fragile?
The corruption of curriculum thinking
In 1975, the economist Charles Goodhart wrote: 'Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes'. This claim is often colloquialised as 'When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure'. An example of this is what happened when GP surgeries were given … Continue reading The corruption of curriculum thinking
Matthew Evans 