Ofsted announce school report grades are bollocks and to be ignored

[noblegiraffe]

Confirming what I’ve been banging on about for ages, Ofsted have announced that school internal tracking data - the sort of ‘working at’ grades that appear on reports to parents - will be ignored in school inspections because it’s made-up nonsense.

“Too often a vast amount of teachers' time is absorbed into recording, collecting and analysing excessive progress and attainment data within schools. And that diverts their time away from what they came into the profession to do. which is be educators.

“And, in fact, with much of that internal progress and attainment data, they and we can’t be sure that it is valid and reliable information.”

www.tes.com/news/ofsted-inspections-wont-examine-internal-school-data

Maybe, just maybe, if Ofsted are no longer interested in seeing it, teachers won’t have to make it up any more?

Piggy yes you set your standard for the class you have, within the context of the department.

I expect all pupils to be able to get 100% on the tests I've set - I've taught them 100% of the material. They never do though. Have they all failed??

If the standard you believe your test should be is 100% and that students who score under 100% are not going to have understood the curriculum and retrieved it to a good standard then I suppose yes, none of your students will have reached the standard. However, 80% of material is forgotten if it is not reviewed within 30 days, so perhaps your teaching is great but the students’ reviewing isn’t?

I think cauliflower you will find that most schools and depts don't work that way...aren't your students measured against 'target grades'?

Any road up, my main objection (and that of nearly all right minded thinkers in educational research at the moment) is that this incessant gaterhing of data is pointless and reductive. You are free to test your stduents to see if they have learnt what they should have done and react accordingly. That has always been the case. What is stupid in English is that one half term a student might do an essay on, say , poetry and do really quite well. The next half term they may do a completely different style assessment on, say, An Inspector Calls and not do so well. The gathered data (becuase so may school only gather data from tests) would suggest they have gone backwards; thye plainly haven't! And, in amongst that, it is rare for students to do the exact same assessment again a few weeks later to see if they can do it better, mainly becuase of tiem and workload, but also because it is so unremittingly BORING to keep testing! The way my school would reflect that 'result' to parents would be to average out two entirely different results. Let's not kid ourselves that all this data gathering is being done as a diagnostic tool : it is being used to 'track progress'.

At least English is now 100% exam : back when we had controlled assessments , the system truly was bonkers.

I have much more autnomy in the other subject I teach and can be flexible with my data and how I interpret it and set much more individualised targets (and, as Teacher Tapp survey recently showed, I do , oddly, more markign and feedback when left to my own devices!). I would be delighted if the latest pronouncement makes my school and faculty leadership more reflective about why we do what we do. But, as I said, I am sceptical.

And this expected standard is recorded and reported to parents Cauli? With teachers coming up with their own for each class?

What’s the science behind this standard setting and how is it not just you having a bit of a reckon?

Piggy yes I totally agree with you re: data drops. I think there should be lots of low level no-stress low stakes testing but not bigger more summative testing. And progress can’t be tracked exactly for the reasons you say.

Noble - it isn’t each individual teacher with a standard for each individual class. At a previous school where I worked we had a similar organisation to you at one point - split year groups with parallel set 1s, 2s, 3s etc. I would often have 2 parallel sets but despite having similar targets they would have different work ethics etc so one half of the year would score better than the other half. That’s why moderating the work across similar sets is important when deciding on the standard.

That’s why moderating the work across similar sets is important when deciding on the standard.

So you decide the acceptable standard after looking at the students’ work? You said you look at a test and decide what percentage the kids should be aiming for.

It all sounds incredibly unreliable - as Ofsted said.

I just find all this marking, moderating, benchmarking etc soul destroying. The focus in the last 10 years or so has shifted away from quality of teaching to quantity quality of marking (and this has changed the attitudes and expectations/ demands of students, too). Hopefully, the pendulum is beginning to swing back at least a little.

In my post at 22:52 I explained that you’d do both.

How is it unreliable to set a test, work out what you think they should be able to achieve, take in the tests, and rank and analyse them, plan subsequent lessons around them?

The unreliable bit, Cauli is when you try to pin a number on what’s acceptable. Totally unnecessary and inaccurate.

Pin the standard at 50% and the grade 9 student thinks they’ve done ok with 60% when really they should have got 90%. The grade 4 student feels a failure with 40% because they didn’t get 50% but 50% is what you were expecting of your grade 5 kids and actually your grade 4 kid is doing just fine. Why would you do that when you don’t have to?
And actually 50% is meaningless anyway.

Out of interest cauli what is your subject?

And saying it’s not pass/fail it’s meeting/not yet meeting isn’t going to convince anyone. Kids aren’t daft. It’s like trying to say you haven’t failed the 11+, you’ve been selected for a secondary modern.

You’d set different minimum standards according to the band they were aiming for, not the same one for everyone.

But actually labelling a student as a “grade 4 kid” isn’t really helpful for anyone - hopefully they’re working towards a range of possible outcomes depending on the amount of work they put in and the quality of teaching they get of course.

The alternative is a grey cloud of “here’s your result but it’s meaningless”. So what benefit is that to anyone?

OK, well let’s leave it there then.

piggy - languages (although I’ve been pulled into English and humanities over the years so I do truly know what an English teacher’s marking load is!)

I am definitely interested in the whole comparative marking thing : not sure how to convince my dept it is the way forward! Their main objection to it seem to be 'progress tracking' and 'generating data' so I supect Daisy and co are behind Ofsted's latest proposal, as they do seem to have Spielman's attention. That's the trouble: nothing is apolitical.

I thought it might be cauli : I think these things are always very tricky with English, which is more nebulous in so many ways. I have taught MFL so can absolutely see how short , retrieval type tests inform future teaching and testing. And that they can gather a pretty good picture of what each student can (and cannot yet) do.

piggy - I can only suggest getting them to look at her website nomoremarking.com

It does take time to do it but it’s so worth it. It makes the feedback more meaningful, which is really the point of it all and how they can get kids to move forward.

I’m quite relieved we’ve seen an end to 4a / 5c rubbish. I always felt like I was a bit alone in thinking how it was all totally made up.

Have you seen any of Jo Facer’s stuff? She’s done some amazing things.

Comparative judgement is great for humanities, not so much for maths.

But what’s acceptable for one student isn’t acceptable for another because students have different abilities to attain that standard. Saying a grade 4 and grade 9 student is a gross over-simplification for the purposes of illustrating a point but if you taught a setted subject you know what I mean.

I’m not proposing giving them nothing. Like I said I give class average and top mark. If they’re interested I’ll also give them the average of the set above or below and the other year half.

The top students have something to compare themselves against, as well as the average.

What’s acceptable is a cloud, not a single figure, and it differs from student to student.

Comparative judgement does not work in Maths.

Tracking "progress" is basically made up data. Everyone in the system knows this. I'm thankful ofsted are getting rid of this requirement.

Maybe they are finally coming full circle and realising that because teaching deals with individuals and not robots, we cannot be measured against targets.

Noble I do similar. Give the top score and class average score. I'll usually give the top score of the set below if they have say the same paper.

My statistics group like to know the standard deviation to draw the normal distribution

cauli , I have indeed suggested this gently a few times. Will try again. We have two GCSE examiners in the dept, which is great for them and us in lots of ways but it does mean we spend endless amounts of tiem 'moderating' to a 'standard' because we have these 'experts' who therefore won't consider other methods.

I will look up Jo Facer.

We don't have Ofstead here but do have reports with gradings to help parents choose a school. They grade on areas around pastoral care and support, as well as education and don't depend on grades at all.

It would be more useful to me to know how many top students were encouraged to work beyond their comfort zone and strive for the next level. And also how many D students were improved to C or B. That shows a better picture of the school than simply grading on how many average and bright kids they happen to have there.

All the fuss that was made about coursework inflating standards was twaddle - % of grades has barely changed since 100% exams was introducec. The difference is that what children produce across four long exams in Eng/Litis a test of memory and how well they write in one two hour period. The standards are lower to reach the equivalent grades because none of us produce our best writing unless it is crafted, thought about, drafted etc. All just a farce.

The reason schools collect internal data is all because of Ofsted anyway. They arrive wanting to know how well children are doing now in every year group. If you hand them a pile of books they say 'What do you have that is robust against GCSE skills, done under timed conditions so we can see how well they are likely to perform next summer? Has it been moderated? How? Has anyone external been involved in that to give it credibility? What did they say? That's in 10 and 11.
In 7, 8 and 9 the DGE withdrew Nat Curric assessment levels and told schools to produce assessment systems that best suited them. Now OfSTED are saying they don't think the systems are robust or clear and make it difficult for OfSTED to assess progress.
The whole thing is madness. OfSTED and the government need to fuck off out if it all and stop makng teacher's jobs harder and more stressful for no good reason.
My friend moved to France to teach. Tells me (secondary Science) the school marks everything out of 10, no mark schemes, no one checks his books, observes his lessons, no OfSTED. He submits a mark out of 20 at the end of the year for each student. Says most children score between 8-15, a few less, rarely higher than 15. No challenging final exams. No one challenges any of his marks. He plans his own lessons and marks his books. That is it. Only in school for the lessons he teaches. Behaviour, guidance, PSHCE, registration, form tutor role, parental contact, all done by support staff. Training days are for staff to mark books at home. He suggested the dept do some CPD together and he would organise it and they were astonished. Behaviour of children and their progress is seen as the respnsibility of the child and his/her parents, not the teachers. He says parents are really supportive in his secondary school and will intervene if their child is getting it wrong.
We are told French education produces better outcomes than the English system.

DFE not DGE. Grr!