For details of the Principal post visit The Swanage School website, Staff Vacancies page or [...]]]> Aiming to create an exemplar model of education, The Swanage School will cater for 420 students, with 84 in each house, in four teaching groups of 21 in each year group. For more background see our Free Schools section

For details of the Principal post visit The Swanage School website, Staff Vacancies page or additionally at:

http://www.tes.co.uk/JobDetail.aspx?jobid=68858 and at http://www.eteach.com/Job.aspx?VacNo=422609&Page=1

Anyone thinking of applying for a leadership, teaching or other job in the run up to their opening in September 2013 is welcome to join The Swanage School’s Eteach “Talent Pool”. The Swanage School will register your interest and can keep you in touch with news of progress in developing the school (both the physical and the non-physical!), as well as letting you know when vacancies arise.

Stuart put forward the intriguing argument that the target perpetuated the problem [...]]]> A few months ago, the chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee Graham Stuart MP jousted with secretary of state Michael Gove MP on the impact of 5 A-C grades at GCSE as the central measure of success for secondary schools.

Stuart put forward the intriguing argument that the target perpetuated the problem it sought to solve; leading to students in areas of disadvantage being less likely to achieve at school and enjoy success in their lives.

Gove’s view, of course, was that the target ‘acts as a spur to overall improvement for every student’, because schools know that ‘they will be held directly accountable if they fall below it.’

Stuart riposted that the target compels schools in areas of high disadvantage to focus their bests resources on students who are ‘on the borderline’ so as to get them into the group securing 5 A-C grades. This means that they cannot focus ‘their attention and their best people on the poorest’.

Gove swiped this argument away with a characteristic display of indignation. Did it not demean young people to say that, just because they were poor or disadvantaged, any one of them was incapable of getting five A-Cs including English and maths? And surely he was not suggesting that the drivers for teachers and headteachers were ‘external accountability factors’ rather than their desire to do the best for every child.

At this point, Stuart accused Gove of being naïve. He could not both say that the measure had an impact and that professionals could ignore it. . “People will follow the incentives you create and you should not suggest those people have moral failings if they deliver what you say.’

That this probably was Gove’s meaning was suggested by his comments on the English Baccalaureate. There was nothing, he argued, to stop schools ignoring the EBacc because it was not right ‘for them, their ethos or their pupils’. They should ‘feel strong enough to say, ‘We are taking a different approach.’ They might have to justify that decision to parents, but ‘there is no penalty from the Government in saying that you have got a 0% score in the English Baccalaureate if you are doing well in other measures.’

At this point, Stuart came very close to saying that Gove did not know anything about how to set targets. ‘Perhaps,’ he remarked, ‘we should have people more experienced in running organisations and business, who understand the power of measures to drive behavior, because if you do not understand the power of incentives, you will not understand the behavior in the system that you are responsible for.

Earlier in the discussion, Stuart observed that having a focus on the 5 A-Cs target had not helped the previous government prevent schools falling down the PISA rankings. Why then was he reinforcing the focus on the anchor measure with ‘additional machismo’.

What Stuart touched on here, but doesn’t quite nail, is the difficulty that arises from pursuing with vigour exam grades that are only a proxy for what you are actually trying to achieve. Neither politician is uninterested in schools being inspiring places where everyone is enthused by learning and can become, as Gove sometimes puts it, the ‘authors’ of their own lives. But the more machismo is applied to ensuring schools achieve a particular target, the more likely the target is to become their focus rather than the rich experience of learning for which it acts as an indicator.

The reason why the argument goes nowhere, and Stuart cannot land a killer blow on Gove, is that the discussion about ‘gaming’ the system is cast in black and white terms that bear no relation to reality. Of course, teachers and headteachers want to help every child, from whatever background, to achieve. But the pressure to achieve a particular target in a particular period compels them to make choices in every moment of every day between what might create the most engaging experience of learning for young people, and what is most likely to achieve the result.

Later in the same meeting, the secretary of state referred positively to Ofsted 2009 report on Characteristics of outstanding secondary schools in challenging circumstances (Ref 080240) This argues that the distinctive feature of secondary schools that deliver high levels of achievement, despite being based in areas of high deprivation, is a culture that fosters strong learning relationships between staff and students. The argument is that schools can achieve more A*-Cs by fostering:

• An appreciative, no-blame culture that encourages initiative, innovation and experimentation
• Staff being open and honest with each other in a working environment that values good communication and collegiate professionalism
• Strong relationships that ensure students know that their teachers really do care
• A capacity to listen closely to what students say and use this feedback to improve learning
• A steady flow of improvements coming from staff having time to work in teams and engage in reflective discussions that are rooted in high-quality data

Gove recognizes the need to ensure that all schools can achieve their target by creating a strong culture. But Stuart is surely right to suspect that the way the strong focus on one particular target may operate in a thousand subtle and intangible ways to corrode culture, so ensuring that a measure which it meant to contribute to closing the achievement gap in fact makes it more difficult to do so.

The OECD report argues that this can be achieved [...]]]> Schools need to provide a supportive climate and environment for learning if they are to ensure all students attain high-level skills ‘regardless of their personal and socio-economic circumstances’, according to a report on equity in education from the 24-country Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

The OECD report argues that this can be achieved by:

• Prioritising the development of positive teacher-student and student-teacher relationships
• Ensuring that the school is of a size that ‘reinforces student-student and student-teacher interactions’
• Setting up classroom learning strategies that combine student-centred and teacher-led instruction
• Developing alternative ways of organizing instruction time
• Using data information systems to identify students who are struggling
• Aligning curriculum and assessment practices
• Building links with parents and the communities around schools

The authors emphasizes the importance of linking changes in school size to reforms in the school and classroom that allow for the use of ‘small school’ instruction practices.

‘It is,’ they say, ‘both the frequency and quality of student-student and student-teacher interactions in small schools and classrooms that matter. Moving from one size to another requires a shift in what it means to be an effective teacher.’

“When students feel recognized and do not fear being embarrassed or compared to peers, they are more likely to identify positively with school, use cognitive strategies that contribute to academic success and feel confident in their ability to learn.’

Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools can be viewed here

The expert [...]]]> The government’s expressed desire for teachers to become more innovative and resourceful in delivering the curriculum will be constrained by the continuation of an accountability system that is driven by attainment outcomes, and the lack of support for teachers as curriculum developers, according to a report from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

The expert panel on the curriculum recommends that the national curriculum should be complemented by a local curriculum which provides ‘opportunities for schools to innovate and to develop particular local interests or specalisms’. There should, they say, be ‘substantial scope for school leaders and classroom teachers to exercise professional judgement and creativity in deciding how to contextualize, extend, deepen and embed the curriculum and learning experience.’

This won’t work, argues RSA researcher Louise Thomas, if teacher quality is narrowly defined as the capacity to get students to absorb the academic knowledge they need to get good grades in their exams. ‘Accountability systems,’ she says, ‘can constrain teacher autonomy as much as prescriptive curricula.’

Teachers, she argues, need to be seen as ‘mediators and creators as well as transmitters of knowledge.’ Drawing on the RSA’s experience of working with schools on the development and delivery of an area-based curriculum, she argues that ‘teachers are better able to achieve their attainment goals and offer a more engaging educational experience by working collaboratively with other professionals and local stakeholders’.

Like the Children’s Commissioner in her recent report on exclusions, Thomas observes that teachers often lack confidence to engage with the diverse faith and ethnic groups that exist in their area. They can also find it difficult to conceive of parents from more disadvantaged groups as partners in the education of their children.

If we are to realize the potential from seeing education as a ‘shared endeavor to be undertaken by schools and communiites in collaboration,’ she argues, then there a need for ‘teacher capacity to be developed to work more effectively with the diverse communities they serve’. Also, teachers need to be enabled to develop as ‘intellectuals equipped to debate and critique the assumptions underpinning what children are to be taught’.

Currently, however, the persistence of a view of knowledge as a fixed, static body of content means that the government has no strategy for supporting teachers to take on the role of curriculum developers.

Re-thinking the importance of teaching: Curriculum and Collaboration in an era of localism by Louis Thomas can be downloaded from: http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/570716/RSA-Re-thinking-the-importance-of-teaching.pdf

The Framework for the National Curriculum: A report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review can be downloaded from here

They call for a shift in emphasis towards ‘securing a suitable degree of understanding by all [...]]]> The ‘crude’ practice of categorising students with abstracted descriptive levels is inhibiting the performance of schools, distorting pupils’ learning and exacerbating social division, according to a report from the expert group advising the government on a new national curriculum.

They call for a shift in emphasis towards ‘securing a suitable degree of understanding by all students prior to moving on to the next set of learning objectives’, which is the approach adopted by all ‘high-performing systems.’

It is a ‘tragedy’, the authors say, ‘that some pupils become more concerned for what level they are than for the substance of what they know, can do and understand.’

Summary reporting in the form of levels ‘is too general to unlock parental support for learning, for effective targeting of learning support, or for genuine recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of school programmes.’

The authors recognize that the use of leveling reflects a persistent belief ‘that capacity to learn, and achieve, is determined by innate endowment of fixed intelligence’, and contrast this to who countries with a Confucian heritage, such as China and Singapore, emphasise the importance of promoting effort to achieve mastery.

They also lament the way in which ‘an instrumental attitude, which values test and examination results and certificates as ends in themselves’ has come to dominate the English system, observing that this ‘diminishes the priority that should be given to ensuring that the underlying learning being accredited is deep and secure.’

The Framework for the National Curriculum: A report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review can be downloaded from here

Observing that a black Afro-Caribbean [...]]]> All student teachers should study child development and bodies of knowledge such as attachment theory, according to a report from the Children’s Commisioner Maggie Atkinson on how to reduce exclusions. ‘Serving teachers and non-teaching staff should be expected to train, and to refresh their knowledge in similar fashion,’ it adds.

Observing that a black Afro-Caribbean boy with special needs who is eligible for free school meals is 168 times more likely to be permanently excluded than a white girl without special needs who is not eligible for free school meals, the report calls for teachers to better understand ‘the cultural and other differences commonly found in English society and therefore its schools.’

‘A lack of understanding of how to manage children who have differing abilities and cultural and relationship expectations,’ says the report, ‘can lead to confrontations between teachers and children, increasing the likelihood of specific groups of children having disciplinary problems, exceeding boundaries and thresholds and ultimately being excluded.’

 “They never give up on you”: Office of the Children’s Commissioner School Exclusions Inquiry can be downloaded from here

Interviews with secondary school students in London, Nottingham and Glasgow produced no evidence to support the widely-held belief that there is a problem of low aspirations among young people from [...]]]> Low aspirations are more likely to be the result of poor achievement than its cause, according to a report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Interviews with secondary school students in London, Nottingham and Glasgow produced no evidence to support the widely-held belief that there is a problem of low aspirations among young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Also, the authors note, there was ‘little evidence of fatalism in the face of depressed labour markets’, or of young people having largely unrealistic expectations.

The real problem, they suggest, is that parents and young people often have little understanding what it will take to fulfil particular ambitions. They may also not be good at fitting their aspirations to the kinds of jobs available in the local job market. In reality, ‘young people collectively have aspirations higher than the outcomes likely to be delivered by the labour market.’

The authors found that there were distinctive patterns of aspiration in each of the urban centres they investigated. They were lower, for example, among the predominantly white working class communities of Nottingham than among the diverse, ethnically-rich communities of London.

Given that aspirations seemed to be linked to social class, culture and history as well as people’s direct experience of the places they live in, ‘generalisations about the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour that surround aspirations in deprived communities are not helpful and should be avoided’.

The influence of parents, places and poverty on educational attitudes and aspirations by Keith Kintrea, Ralph St Clair and Muir Houston is published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and can be downloaded from here

‘What continues to confound claims to a socially just education system,’ Francis [...]]]> Ofsted’s decision in January to change the ‘satisfactory’ rating to ‘requires improvement’ was anticipated by a report from the RSA’s outgoing director of education Becky Francis. This observed that schools in disadvantaged areas often failed to move out of their status as ‘satisfactory’.

‘What continues to confound claims to a socially just education system,’ Francis argued, ‘is the apparent concentration of children from lower socio-economic groups in satisfactory schools, while their more affluent middle-class counterparts are disproportionately represented in good schools.’

The problem with the ‘satisfactory’ rating, as she saw it, was that so little was being done to help those schools identify what needs to improve. ‘It seems preposterous that we have such good inspectors, but no equivalent organised supply of expert advisors to support improvement.’

Exploration of the inspection reports for satisfactory schools revealed a tendency for teachers in those schools to lecture pupils and dominate the classroom with top-down approaches. The constraint this imposed on pupils’ independent learning had a negative impact on classroom behavior.

‘It may be,’ Francis suggests, that these approaches ‘reflect teacher anxiety about the need to ensure and drill content coverage, and/or a distrust of the ability of their students to work independently or in groups. There may also be a dual relationship with practice around behavior: because the teachers are not confident about student behavior, they revert to traditional approaches to ‘control’, which of course entrenches problems.

Francis calls for the setting up of a nationwide system to gather and share best practice in addressing contextual challenges and facilitate collegiate school-to-school learning.

 (Un)Satisfactory? Enhancing Life Chances by Improving ‘Satisfactory’ Schools by Becky Francis, RSA Director of Education can be downloaded from here

A new group set up by the principals of five FE colleges is calling for a shift towards ‘experiential learning through and in work’ that will better equip students for the knowledge economy.

Currently, say members of the Gazelle Group, the system aims at enabling young people to gain recognized vocational qualifications based upon [...]]]>  

A new group set up by the principals of five FE colleges is calling for a shift towards ‘experiential learning through and in work’ that will better equip students for the knowledge economy.

Currently, say members of the Gazelle Group, the system aims at enabling young people to gain recognized vocational qualifications based upon defined and codified technical skills.

FE Colleges operate to ‘balance the operational criteria of different funding systems with the curriculum and quality requirements of the national qualifications bureaucracy.’ Good work happens, but only on the margins of the mainstream system.

The qualifications that students pursue, however, are less and less relevant to employers who are ‘most concerned with employees’ behavior competences such as initiative, team-working and perservance.’

Also, students of being confined within stable and segregated occupational frameworks is increasingly alien to the experience they will have in today’s workplace, ‘where it is up to each individual to collaborate and learn for themselves through experience.

The report proposes a shift towards a system that enables FE Colleges to set up multiple reflective learning environments where students can engage directly with client groups and supply chains as they learn through the commercial development of their own ideas and innovations, with support from mentors.

They warn against giving employers control over FE colleges, given that the likely result is a focus on the requirements of big business, rather than those of enterprising small and medium-sized enterprises.

‘The real clients,’ they say, ‘must be the individual learners who are investing, through the engagement in that system, in their own futures.’

Enterprising Futures: The changing landscape and new possibilities for further education is published by Gazelle Global and can be downloaded from here

The NFER reports notes that anti-bullying policies tend to give less attention to this more subtle form [...]]]> Bullying that leads to children feeling ‘left out’ has a bigger impact on their wellbeing than physical or verbal abuse, according to an analysis of 35,000 student surveys carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

The NFER reports notes that anti-bullying policies tend to give less attention to this more subtle form of bullying, perhaps reflecting the fact that ending social rejection of some people by others is more difficult to tackle than the ‘already not insignificant challenge of dealing with explicit bullying.

But there is a need, the authors argue, ‘for schools to build on efforts to help young people to socialize, and explore ways of supporting them when relationships with other pupils break down.’

Stick and stones may break my bones but being left on my own is worse: an analysis of reported bullying at school within NFER attitude surveys by Tom Benton can be downloaded from here.