PISA test chat anyone?

[Piggywaspushed]

Come on noble you know you want to!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50563833

Reading whole article is very interesting. Tories claim we have got miles better and that rigour is paying off. However, despite rise in rankings actual scores are about the same.

Ant the wellbeing stuff is shocking! At what emotional and mental health cost all this??

Time to stop looking to Asia (failed already in maths with this) and look genuinely closely at Estonia? But the Tories don't want to know about that because it goes against every single agenda : no school til 7, no Ofsted, no grammar schools, no testing regimes. no setting at all (sorry noble) and-lo- high scores and high wellbeing.

However, they are having some recruitment issues in Estonia.

I would like to note that we do do better at post 16 and university than lots of these countries, especially Asia, so there is something to be said for our teaching of independent thought.

[cabbageking]

Have a look at FFT for data behind the PiSA data

[Eatsshoootsandleaves]

I've had a look through. Curious as to why children in Wales are scoring so much lower than the rest of the UK?

[Piggywaspushed]

I have read quite a bit lately about how much of a shitshow the curriculum for Wales is, but know nothing about it.

It might also be relative poverty.

Tbh the Scottish and NO education systems have always been quite highly rated so I am a bit surprised England does, overall, better.

[Piggywaspushed]

NI not NO

[Piggywaspushed]

In fact, the Scottish graph is by far and away he most interesting!

[Pipstelle]

The well-being data is atrocious never mind the rest....but I think that's a larger culturally issue as well

[noblegiraffe]

Curious as to why children in Wales are scoring so much lower than the rest of the UK?

They scrapped league tables and standards dropped. It’s always given as a reason why we should keep them here.

[Piggywaspushed]

But, actually, their standards may still be low but they have gone up a lot in the last couple of years?

[noblegiraffe]

But the trend is fairly flat for Wales from 2006, Scotland is a bit all over the place too.

Finland on the other hand has a clear negative trend that will hopefully put that fad to bed for good.

It is a bit annoying that we’ve had years of cuts and a crisis in teaching and we’ve gone up. People will be tempted to say ‘well things can’t be that bad then’. I don’t think we can draw any firm conclusions based on one set of results.

[Piggywaspushed]

We haven't actually gone up though in terms of actual results... the results in reading are the only ones that have actually gone up.

My understanding is that Scotland had a big trough and there have been positive changes made which have rapidly improved things.

Was Finland ever a fad? I don't think we ever adopted any of their thinking!

Estonia and Canada would be more interesting case studies, Canada especially perhaps.

[noblegiraffe]

Maths has gone up by a ‘statistically significant’ amount.

[Piggywaspushed]

Sorry, yes, got maths and reading muddled,as you do...

Not sure the Tories will want us to know that all that phonics stuff may not have done much...

[Piggywaspushed]

Lucy Crehan visited Canada in Cleverlands : it sounded great.

[noblegiraffe]

The story behind maths seems to be that the strong kids have got stronger and the weak kids haven’t made much progress.

Which could possibly come from the new GCSE stretching the top end, but really isn’t my gut feeling from teaching A-level!

[Piggywaspushed]

This is a better and more detailed article , I think :

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/dec/03/british-schoolchildren-among-least-satisfied-with-their-lives-says-oecd-report

[noblegiraffe]

I think the mood of the whole country has plummeted since 2015, it’s rather unsurprising that our children should be affected. Is there a survey of adults that asks a similar question?

[noblegiraffe]

I’m hoping that Germany will stop coming up in education discussions (alongside Finland). ‘Oh but they have such good vocational education in Germany, we should copy them and stream the less academic into plumbing courses’.

As the graph shows, Germany is terrible on the measure of social equity. France too, what is their problem??

[Piggywaspushed]

Yes, Germany is an interesting example always used. I thought France was good on equity but clearly not.

Germany is highly selective. My DS went to a specialist music gymnasium their on an exchange. He found their lessons very different. Very formal. But the students themselves better behaved and 'happier'. Interesting!

There was a survey of adults and we did come very low. They also surveyed across the UK. Orkney came top several years running.

[Piggywaspushed]

I think all the above average in reading but below average in equity have some form of selective education as standard, although I know nothing of Belgium!

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I wouldn’t bet on the Finnish myth dying out.

[Piggywaspushed]

I don't think it is a myth. Even if it is sliding a little, it massively punches about its weight.

[noblegiraffe]

‘The Finns don’t start formal education until 7’ will just be replaced with ‘Estonians don’t start formal education until 7’.

[Piggywaspushed]

But it is true...

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I don’t think Finland’s raw scores have just dropped a bit, have they? At best they’re levelling off a downward trend that’s lasted over a decade. Their raw scores have fallen further than any other country in the OECD and still seem to be falling.

As far as school starting ages go it’s a bit pointless trying to draw any conclusion from PISA data.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

From the BBC article:

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the rise in the rankings reflected the efforts of Conservative governments to have "more rigorous primary school assessments and more pupils are now studying the core academic subjects at GCSE".

Almost certainly not the most stupid thing Gavin Williamson has ever said, but this is total bollocks, right?