This is a follow-up to my earlier blog 'Nobody Knows Which Schools Are Good'. I'd recommend reading it first. It is the 21st of May 2024, the biggest night of the year for state-funded schools in England. Tonight is the night when headteachers find out how they will be judged this summer. The great and …
This is the first part of the talk I gave at researchED London 2019. It is almost entirely based on work I completed with Dave Thomson at FFT Education Datalab. All the smart bits are his and the errors are mine! Have you ever read so much and thought about something so hard, that you …
If something is important, but not possible, should schools try to do it anyway? There is no better example of a thing-that-can’t-be-done than careers education. The argument for careers education seems compelling: many students (particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds) don’t know what jobs are out there, therefore careers advice is important. Nearly every adult you meet …
I thought I had nothing to say about Ofsted's proposed use of book scrutiny because there is no research on book scrutiny (I wonder why?!?). As far I am concerned, even if Ofsted's own research could show inspectors can rate books with 100% consistency, it would still be a terrible idea. The effect of the …
Last week, Ed Dorrell wrote a strange editorial in TES called ‘Why attaching excluded pupils' results to their school won't work'. I say it was strange because he failed to address the major impediment to including off-rolled pupils in accountability metrics (i.e. finding them... for that, read on). There is no doubt that there are …
These three blogs (part I, part II, part III here) are based on a talk I gave at Headteachers' Roundtable Summit in March 2019. My thoughts on this topic have been extensively shaped by conversations with Ben White, a psychology teacher in Kent. Neither of us yet know what we think! Our beliefs about our …
These three blogs (part I, part II here, part III) are based on a talk I gave at Headteachers' Roundtable Summit in March 2019. My thoughts on this topic have been extensively shaped by conversations with Ben White, a psychology teacher in Kent. Neither of us yet know what we think! The two fundamental jobs …
Continue reading Writing the rules of the grading game (part II): The games children play
These three blogs (part I here, part II, part III) are based on a talk I gave at Headteachers' Roundtable Summit in March 2019. My thoughts on this topic have been extensively shaped by conversations with Ben White, a psychology teacher in Kent. Neither of us yet know what we think! Teachers are rarely trained …
Continue reading Writing the rules of the grading game (part I): The grade changes the child
Question: What links GCSE Design and Technology* with my 4 year old's class size? Answer: Money. And the choices we've made about how to spend it. We've made the strangest resourcing choices in England, although it is so ingrained in our societal norms that is hard for us to recognise it. Children start at age 4 …
Continue reading When would you like to be in a smaller class: age 5 or age 15?
I have been talking to many teachers and school leaders recently about what information needs to be recorded, whether in a markbook or in a centralised system, for a teacher to teach effectively. The answer is, partly, that it depends on what information the teacher is able to hold in their head, without the need …
Continue reading It’s not (just) what teachers know, it’s who teachers know
Becky Allen 