"Stalled standards" and Ofsted reform

Ofsted are proposing changes to their inspection regime from September 2009 and have opened consultation on their suggestions.

Key points in the proposals:

- Different inspections, suited to the school's previous inspection, with a focus on schools which are not improving:

- Good and outstanding schools will receive an inspection within 6 years (with a small "health check" at a mid-point);

- Satisfactory schools within 3 years;

- Satisfactory schools which are not improving, will receive a monitoring visit within 12-18 months and a full inspection in 3 years;

- Inadequate Notice to Improve will receive a monitoring visit within 6-8 months and full inspection in 3 years.

- Special Measures, two or three monitoring visits per year.

- Parents will have more say over whether their school should be inspected.

- Increased focus on the progress made by different types of students (those typically likely to fall behind).
- Explore whether the possibility of "no-notice" inspections are feasible (this has been criticised by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, cited on BBC News).

- Reporting on the contribution the school makes towards community cohesion.

- Assessing that leadership and management ensure that teaching has an impact on learning; equality, diversity and cohesion are taken into account; parents and students views are taken into account; the curriculum meets the needs of learners; resources are used well and learners are well supported.

There was discussion in parliament after ofsted said that standards in schools have stalled:

"If education in England is going to compare favourably with the best in the world, standards need to improve. In fact they have stalled,"

Watch debate from BBC news

Climbie lessons 'not learned'

The death of Victoria Climbie in 2000 supposedly marked a turning point in the welfare of children in the UK, with the following inquiry lead by Lord Laming and the launch of "Every Child Matters". The mother of Victoria, spoke on BBC Radio 4. She thanked the government for establishing the inquiry but is "hurt" by the lack of action by local government.

Responding, Lord Laming agreed that the performance of social services was patchy and that some local authorities are not moving towards integrated working in the way intended.

Listen to the interview (28-May-2008)

Click on BBC News to read their report (28-5-08)


Read speech by Kevin Brennan, MP.

Victoria Climbie Foundation UK

Child povery: everybody's business

2007 saw the establishment of a Child Poverty Unit to integrate strategy across government towards the targets of halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it totally by 2020. March 2008 saw the release of the overall strategy in the paper Ending child poverty: everybody's business.

Key points:
- The paper sets out the wide range of causes of poverty which are dynamic and influential at various levels (individual, family, neighbourhood) showing that the one strategy will not reach all of the children. Work is seen as the best root out of poverty, but this does not always work.

- The costs of child poverty are significant, not only to the child themselves, but to the wider society and economy.

- Government strategies such as sure start, school standards and others have helped improve the life chances of children in poverty. However, not all strategies have had the intended full impact and there is more to do.

- The final section indicates what the government will do next. The theme is on a "contract" between the parent and the state. The state will increase opportunity (such as opportunity to take up employment, increased childcare places etc.) and expect that parents will use these opportunities. Most of the section refers to changes in benefit payments and employment opportunities but there is also mention of improving the professional skills of all children's service staff so they can address poverty and ensuring children's trusts can focus on poverty.

OECD Report: an overview of English schools

This report was published in August 2007 but is worth noting as a comprehensive account of the recent past and current state of English schools. It is a large report and is split into the following sections:

Chapter 1: The National Context of Schooling
Chapter 2: Overall description of the school system
Chapter 3: School governance and leadership
Chapter 4: Enhancing learning and school leadership
Chapter 5: The attractiveness of school leaders’ role
Chapter 6: Training and professional development of school leaders

Finally the report highlights key areas likely to see changes in the future, such as succession, personalised learning and standards.

Impact of support staff in schools

This DCSF paper is the third report from a five year study (2004-09) providing information on the types, characteristics and deployment of support staff in schools in England and Wales and their impact on teaching and learning.

Key points:
- Support staff spend most of their time on support for the school in two ways:
1. administrative/communicative activities (1.7 hours on average per day),
2. support for the school’s (physical environment (1.4 hours).
Overall, support staff spent more time supporting the school than pupils (3.1 vs.1.7 hours).

- The single most common individual activity was working with one pupil (29%). This was particularly true of secondary schools. Followed by listening to the teacher teach (20%), and then working with different pupils by ‘roving’ around the class (16%) - again most true of secondary schools. The next most common activity was working with a group of pupils (15%) and this was much more common in primary schools. At secondary level, classroom based support staff therefore tended to work with individuals and walk around the classroom, while at primary level support staff worked with groups of pupils.

- Teachers were mostly positive about the impact of support staff on teaching. Support staff helped by bringing specialist help; allowing more teaching overall; affecting the curriculum/tasks/activities offered; and taking on specific pupils.

- The presence of support staff had a beneficial effect on pupils. First, support staff allowed more individualisation of attention. Second, there seemed to be benefits in terms of classroom control as a result of support staff presence.

- The presence of support staff had a beneficial effect on pupils in terms of allowing pupils to have a more active role in interactions with adults. There was also evidence that the presence of support staff increased the amount of classroom engagement. However, this might have resulted in less active interaction with the teacher.

- Teachers were mostly positive about the impact of support staff on pupil behaviour and
learning. They felt that support staff affected learning/behaviour through taking on specific pupils; bringing specialist help to the teacher & classroom; having a positive impact on the pupils’ behaviour, discipline, social skills or behaviour; and by allowing individualisation and differentiation.

- It was noticeable that teachers and headteachers tended not to refer to pupil attainment and learning when addressing the benefits and effects of support staff, even when they were considering classroom based support staff and were specifically asked to consider effects on pupil behaviour and learning. Instead comments were more about effects on teachers and teaching than pupil outcomes.

Future of school leaders

The National College of School Leadership have released this interesting paper which captures the main thoughts on leadership by looking through this history of leadership theory. Originally designed for the NHS, it is amended for school leaders and shows the relevance of the theory across various disciplines. A good introduction to the basic ideas around leadership.

Review of school governance

The DCFS working group into governing bodies met on the 8th May and was led by School Minister Jim Knight and is intended to ensure that school governors can meet the 10 years children's plan. (Read BBC News article).

The Ministerial Working Group on School Governance formal terms of reference are:
• consider the effectiveness of the current governance arrangements in relation to the Children’s Plan objectives and consider the future role and purpose of school governors;
• establish principles for a streamlined stakeholder model of governance that can deliver public accountability through good and robust governance in the diverse range of schools in the maintained school system;
• examine how to develop the stakeholder governance model to act as a help to delivering better outcomes for children, where schools are merging and federating; and
• ensure school governance arrangements complement the development of stronger pupil voice, parents’ councils and new engagement of other stakeholders.

The National Governors Association support the review but do express concerns about some of the data and terms of reference. The Association of School and College Leaders also support the review.

Personalisation of learning: international research

The Victoria government (Australia) released this summary of personalised learning by tracking its evolution across several countries including the UK. Besides a useful history of the emergence of personalised learning, both internationally and nationally, the report also highlights case studies and emerging practice in implementation.

School leadership and ECM

The National College for School Laadership commissioned NFER to research the links between school leadership and Every Child Matters (ECM). Their report has 6 key messages:

1. Effective school leaders are able to fully convince the staff in their school that a focus on ECM can raise standards and that ECM complements, rather than conflicts with, the standards agenda.
2. ECM cannot be achieved by a single school leader: effective school leaders share leadership responsibilities widely amongst the professionals working within the school
3. ECM outcomes cannot be achieved by the school alone: effective school leaders adopt a collaborative approach with other schools, agencies and services
4. ECM has widened school leaders’ role and led to an emerging model involving
leadership beyond their own institution, within the wider community
5. Effective school leaders believe in genuine student, parent, and community
consultation in order to develop locally responsive solutions to ECM
6. To implement ECM effectively, school leaders will require new skills: effective school leaders engage in ongoing professional development and promote a whole-school learning culture.

Narrowing the gap

This Local Government Association commissioned research completed by the NFER examined the literature to find effective strategies in reducing delivering the 5 Every Child Matters outcomes for vulnerable children.

Key findings:
- strategies promoting children’s health, safety and economic stability all help to provide the necessary conditions to support effective and enjoyable learning and raise achievement
- interventions to remediate disadvantage and narrow the gap in outcomes for vulnerable groups need a long-term focus
- interventions which adopt an holistic and joined-up approach dealing with the range of obstacles and negative influences holding children back are the most effective
- interventions that focus on the whole family and involve children learning and working with their parents/carers are some of the most effective
- interventions need to build upon the positive elements and experiences of children’s and family lives and take account of value and belief systems.

Social care professionals in extended schools

This NFER research briefing examined the role of social care professionals within extended schools from the view of service users and professional groups.

Key findings:
- both social care and education professionals reported that through the school environment they could provide an appropriate environment for social care provision
- integrating social care into extended schools required a shift in working practices for both agencies and, in the early stages, led to challenges in adapting to a new culture
- the benefits are seen as significant and the challenges are felt to be negotiable
- The three main benefits highlighted were:
- earlier identification of needs and quicker access to service;
- a better understanding between social care and education colleagues; and
- offering a more coherent support package

The researchers conclude that linking social care professionals and extended schools is a successful way of integrating services and an effective response to ECM. It also assists the shift in working practices towards joint initiatives. It aids preventative work and can ease the pressure of workload for social workers. There is the opportunity for further research into the longitudinal impact of social care professionals in extended schools.

Families at risk - pathfinders annouced

The DCSF have announced the 15 Local Authority pathfinders to pilot the "think family" approach, a 3 year strategy attracting £16million across England.

Within Yorkshire & Humber this includes Leeds Local Authority, who are also one of the 6 Local Authorities to pilot the Extended Family Pathfinder for Young Carers.

First announced in the 10yr. Children's Plan, the Family Pathfinder project has a history:

- Whitehall (Cabinet Office) started a review into families at risk in 2007, with various reports. They created a definition of what was meant by families at risk and gathering background information (click for link)
- The final report of the group resulted in a strategy called "think family" and a framework for how this will look, regarding public service provision.
- The suggestion to move towards pathfinders, to experiment and share results, was seen as the logical next step.

Think family at every stage of the system, taken from Cabinet Office, "think family, improving the life chances of families at risk (for full document click here).

Click on image to see larger version.

Teacher Training & the best teachers

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research reflects on the economic, social and political trends and changes to the role and expectations of teachers within the last 20 years before going on to illustrate how the difference between a good and a bad teacher can equate to 1 GCSE grade and that whilst a focus does exist on poorly performing teachers there is concern about how to improve those teachers who are deemed "uninspiring".

Teaching of psychological skills are important, but the professional development for teachers to develop skills in this area is weak.

Within limitations, the authors suggest certain characteristics which make an effective teacher. These include high levels of literacy and the teachers academic ability, which affects student attainment more than any other measure.

The authors state that teacher training should be more contextually specific and personalised the individual needs.

Amongst the headlines on the BBC and others include:
- That the current intake of teachers does not reflect the brightest graduates (in the UK it is the top 30% of graduates, whereas in other countries it is the top 10% or even 5%).
- Part of the reason for failing to attract the best is the lack of continued professional development (pay was found to have no effect).
- 1 years training is inadequate.
- 5 days teacher training per year is inadequate (suggest it should be 20).
- The role of school based mentors can be better developed.

The report also notes how different skills are needed to teach vocational subjects, something to become more prevalent with the changes at 14-19.

Click on image to hear an interview with the report's author and a leader from the NUT (from Radio 4's Today, 6-5-08)



Click on BBC News to see their report (6-5-08)