Considerations when looking for MAT partners

Reference: ‘Forming or Joining a Group of Schools: staying in control of your school’s destiny‘. National Governors Association. September 2015

Vision and ethos. How successfully can the group of schools create a shared ethos?

School type. Only academies can form or join a MAT. Maintained schools wishing to form or join a MAT can convert to academy status and join the MAT at the same time.

Geographical proximity. There is no legal requirement for schools in a group to be in close geographical proximity and there are examples of successful MATs with schools many miles apart. Emerging evidence, however, suggests that the benefits of collaboration are much easier to realise when schools are physically close (Lord Nash, minister with responsibility for academies, suggested that groups should ideally consist of schools between which staff could travel in ‘half a lunch break’). MATs in which schools are geographically dispersed usually seek to introduce a tier of regional governance and oversight, through a regional executive role on the trust board and/or regional committees.

Phase. Groups can be primary-only, secondary-only or cross-phase and can include special schools. There is some evidence that cross-phase groups are more likely to be successful, although this is not universal.

Religious character. Schools with a designated religious character have some restrictions placed on them by their religious authority.

 

Teacher retention

Research published in a recent report from the National Foundation for Educational Research finds that the proportion of teachers who are considering leaving the profession has risen from 17% to 23% over the past year.

Protective factors associated with retention include job satisfaction, having adequate resources, reward and recognition, and being well supported by management.

why-are-teachers-disengaged

Interviews with a self-selecting sample of disengaged teachers indicate that “workload is at the centre of why teachers are considering leaving. This is often perceived to stem from two main drivers – policy and inspection. According to interviewees, a high workload is associated with
two other negative outcomes – poor health or feeling undervalued – which leads to teachers wanting to leave.”

The research found “no evidence of any influence of a school’s proportion of free school meal pupils, academy status or region on intent to leave the profession“.

Maths teachers and senior leaders have high levels of engagement and are less likely to be considering leaving. Conversely, science teachers, and experienced male teachers have a heightened risk of leaving.

What’s the problem in science? And why experienced male teachers? It’s a fact that we have only one male teacher.

Reference:
Lynch, S., Worth, J., Bamford, S. and Wespieser, K. (2016). Engaging Teachers: NFER Analysis of Teacher Retention.Slough: NFER.

Primary school accountability measures

Reference: Primary school accountability in 2016 – A technical guide for primary maintained schools, academies and free schools. Department for Education. January 2016

Headline measures of school performance to be published in 2016 are:

  • the percentage of pupils achieving the ‘expected standard’ in all three of English reading, English writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 2.
  • the pupils’ average scaled scores – separate measures for:
    # English reading at the end of key stage 2;
    # mathematics at the end of key stage 2.
  • the percentage of pupils who achieve at a high standard in all three of English reading, English writing and mathematics.
  • the pupils’ average progress from key stage 1 to the end of key stage 2 – separate measures for:
    # English reading;
    # English writing;
    # mathematics.

Continue reading “Primary school accountability measures”

Assessment test vs teacher assessment

An earlier post explained how the expected standard is set for national curriculum assessment tests. Scaled scores are used to enable comparison from year to year.

  • 80 is the lowest scaled score that can be awarded.
  • 120 is the highest scaled score.
  • A pupil awarded a scaled score of 100 or more has met the expected standard.

Teacher assessment uses the concepts of ‘working towards the expected standard’, ‘working at the expected standard’ and ‘working at greater depth within the expected standard’. As explained at the bottom of the page here, there are no scaled score equivalents for these concepts.

Standards for 2016 national curriculum assessment tests

Tests for key stages 1 & 2 are developed using test frameworks. There is a framework for each subject in each stage; this sets out:

  • what will and won’t be assessed by the test;
  • how each element of the subject will be assessed;
  • the structure of the test;
  • the standard a child will be expected to achieve in the test.

Once a test has been developed, the standard is set for it by two panels of experienced teachers operating independently of each other. The ‘bookmark process’ is used: items in the test are ordered by difficulty from easiest to most difficult and the panels use their professional judgement to decide whether two-thirds of pupils working just at the expected standard would answer each question correctly. The resulting score represents the expected standard on the test. It corresponds to a scaled score of 100.

Scaled scores are used because the difficulty of the test will vary slightly from year to year. The actual scores obtained by pupils – the raw scores – are converted to scaled scores. A scaled score of 100 will always represent the expected standard on the test. Pupils scoring 100 or more will have met the expected standard on the test.

A role for the vice-chair of governors?

Writing in Governing Matters, the magazine of the National Governors Association (NGA), Clare Collins comments that the role of the vice-chair of a school’s board of governors often involves little more than waiting to step in when the chair is unavailable. She makes the following suggestions for how the role could involve much more.

Succession planning is important for long term stability of the board. If the vice-chair were the planned successor to the current chair, who should arguably have a fixed term of office, time in the role could be used actively to develop knowledge and capability in preparation for becoming the chair. Continue reading “A role for the vice-chair of governors?”

The Millfields Trust

The Millfields Community Economic Development Trust

Set up to enable local people to contribute and manage the regeneration of the Stonehouse neighbourhood in Plymouth.
Owned by the community and managed by a professional staff under the direction of a Board of Directors.  The Board consist of members representing the local community, City Council and tenants.
Core business is rental of commercial premises.
The trust provides a platform to enable small and medium sized business to grow and develop.

Widening Horizons is an innovative project developed by the Trust in conjunction with the six local primary schools located in Stonehouse. It  enables students to explore new and challenging learning experiences through visits to a number of different venues spread across the city and further afield. The aim is to raise levels of aspirations and subsequently the levels of attainment in students taking part and thus open doors to possible career areas that were not previously considered.

How to make marking more efficient

Writing in The Guardian, English teacher Andrew Tharby suggests that bringing feedback to the forefront of everything that is done in the classroom can reduce the time spent marking and improve the quality of feedback for students. He gives three examples.

The five-minute flick. Check through a cross-section of books to assess how students across a range of abilities performed in the previous lesson. If they have produced a piece of writing, begin the next class by showing an example from one student and critique it together. Guide the class through the editing process to model an improvement together. Individuals then edit their own work with this example in mind.

Gallery critique. Students move around the classroom critiquing one another’s work using Berger’s “kind, specific, helpful” mantra, along with a plentiful supply of post-it notes. Not only do students receive detailed feedback from a number of peers, they also learn from reading each other’s work.

Live marking. As the students are working, call them up one-by-one to discuss their work and feedback both verbally and with symbols.

Teachers’ workload

Three review groups have looked at how to reduce the workload of teachers in these 3 areas:

The groups published their reports on 26 March 2016: