[Tubby Isaacs]

Crackers. Does she know that SATs are a relatively recent development? Did pre-Kenneth Baker Tory Education Secretaries have different cultural values?

Nor is setting a paper that's much too hard for 11 year olds, as seems to have happened, a particularly good cultural value.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The difference in cultural values is real between me and her:

She thinks kids should be 'challenged' and tested to find out what they don't know and then confront them with that failure through league tables and positions. Nick Gibb believes that as well. Summative testing is all. Face the harsh realities.

I think kids should show what they know, being challenged to display their knowledge and understanding, so that their stage of development can be assessed and the next stage planned. Planned failure is extremely counter-productive and demotivating, especially for slower learners. Formative assessment is the key.

I speak as someone who did this job a lot longer than Burble, and has considerably better professional qualifications...

[Watchman]

Every time she opens her mouth, she provides more and more evidence that she has no interest in, or knowledge of, education, and we see her real agenda

[davidjay]

I wonder for how much longer she will remain a headteacher before the GBeebies presenting job and other assorted bits of media becomes more lucrative?

[Andy McDandy]

She wants to play at being a teacher. Partly to show up "the lefties" who say it's hard work, partly to enjoy bossing people about. Same as Toby Young.

A cross between General Jumbo and Rik Mayall in his most over the top authoritarian "Just you do as I tell you, young feller-me-lad" to an nonplussed Ade Edmondson.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She’s got her school which all but tells kids who would struggle to fuck off. Somewhere else gets to educate them and called lefty softies when some of them do indeed struggle.

[Crabcakes]

How is saying making SATs the be-all and end-all of anything remotely a cultural value thing? The only way it could be true is if you think rote learning to pass a test is the sole measure of intelligence. And if you are stupid enough to think that then it isn’t a cultural difference but a chronological one, as you’re stuck in the Victorian era (if not earlier).

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It's about seeing where you stand in rank, knowing your place, and Victorian values of taxonomy.

[MisterMuncher]

She’s got her school which all but tells kids who would struggle to fuck off. Somewhere else gets to educate them and called lefty softies when some of them do indeed struggle.

The school's results are only impressive when you disregard that the reputation and policy amounts to de facto academic selection. After that it's much, much less impressive.

[Youngian]

A conference full of big Cs

[Tubby Isaacs]

The measure of progress in tests (Progress 8) is very high for her school. But that's kind of a lot easier with motivated parents and where the sort who wouldn't make progress don't apply at all. And of course you have the effect that the kids there are constantly told that the school they're going to is special. Bit harder to pull that off in Knowsley, which is why people like her tend to stick to London.

I don't doubt that lots of parents at the school love it. But there's supposed to be a balance in education, and somebody ought to step into make sure there is one.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A conference full of big Cs

What home truths did she tell the conference? I just saw some bollocks where she was attacking people who didn't start enough rows at dinner parties. As someone BTL says, the targets for her stuff weren't in the audience at all. Just like today she's declared culture war on people who have a different view of testing to her.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

The school's results are only impressive when you disregard that the reputation and policy amounts to de facto academic selection. After that it's much, much less impressive.

Selection by interview: strictly forbidden under DfE rules... She says it's to make sure parents are on-board with her archaic methods.. I'd also like to see her funding arrangements...

If the kids get good outcomes, lovely. But don't pretend you can run a system like that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep. See also Wilshaw, Harris etc.

I think you'd be lucky to run a school outside a major city like that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I haven't heard anything about her school doing anything particularly unusual on sex education, history, or anything else.

Would I be right in thinking that they do lots of the "woke curriculum" that other schools do, except go harder for results? Funny she didn't tell the conference that.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I've downloaded the Year 6 SAT and had a look with my professional hat (the one with all the badges and the sweat marks) on.

I was latterly most concerned with the 'Gifted and Talented' cohort, the most able 10%.(Stannines* 8/9). They would certainly not have too much of a problem with the test, either the reading or the questions, although some are ambiguous - for the most able that means that they will waste time prevaricating over the better answer.
Probably the generally above average pupils (Stannine 5-7) would have no problem, but they might find the test hard. No problem with that if it doesn't prove so hard as to demotivate them.
Stannines 1-4 would, I think, struggle, largely because of the vocabulary used in the texts (How many kids in Stannine 1-2 know what a rustler is in the context of sheep stealing?), the need to re-read and report and the previously mentioned ambiguity or open-endedness of some questions.

It is clearly a test designed to separate sheep and goats, rather like the old 11 plus. In fact, very like the old 11 plus...

Those kids who get low grades would, I think, need a lot of support not to feel demotivated and deflated by this test. I can see that some schools with cohorts with a below-average reading level (such as those in deprived or minority areas or with high levels of incomers) would feel cheated, as it does nothing to acknowledge progress made (the point of formative testing) simply reporting on a snapshot of the current situation (summative testing).


*Stannines is a method of dividing scores up into nine groups. 1 is the lowest, 9 the highest. Each of those represents about 4% of the population. The basis for devising stanines is that a normal distribution (the bell curve) is divided into nine intervals, each of which has a width of 0.5 standard deviations excluding the first and last, which are just the remainder (the tails of the distribution). The mean lies at the centre of the fifth interval, hence Stannine 5 is 20% of the population.

[satnav]

When Ed Balls was Education Secretary there was an attempt to totally revamp the Key Stage 2 SATS but the reforms completely bombed. I was invited to join a team of markers somewhere near Coventry to mark the new papers but the whole process quickly descended into a farce. We all arrived on a Saturday and spent most of the day training before being given some sample papers to mark. The sample papers had clearly been completed by adults with the intention of ensuring there was a wide variety of responses. After we had marked these standardisation papers and submitted the marks quite a few markers were sent home and the rest of us were kept on for the following week.

On the Sunday were given even more training before being given some papers to mark which had been submitted by schools taking part in the trial. Yet again we clearly didn't produce the results they wanted because we seemed to get more training every day before being given more papers to mark. By Friday I think they had thrown in the towel because we were all sent home at lunchtime and the project was never mentioned again.

In essence what they tried to do was replace the one size fits all paper with a different papers for each of the 4 levels that were being tested. In many ways it was a good idea in that the level 4 paper would suit the very weak pupils and the level 7 paper would challenge the gifted and talented. I think the big mistake they made was that while they selected reading material that had the appropriate reading age for the levels being tested the subject matter of the material was not very inspiring for the age range that was being tested. I think the level 7 paper was all about the draining system built in London by Joseph Bazalgette.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is incredible, even by her standards. From "none of that is true, media lies" to "the letter was sent out by mistake".

[Tubby Isaacs]

And then.

Followed by a block. Bloody humourless anti-free speech left.

[davidjay]

She doesn't seem to spend much time teaching.