A Principled view

As this Autumn term 2014 closes, it does so with newsletter, publications and reports galore for parents and pupils to read and enjoy.  Some of the creative writing in the Christmas edition of Scribblings is quite extraordinary, capturing in very different ways the ideas around remembrance.  As the Sporting Court Circular shows too, the sheer range and diversity of achievements by our pupils within sport last year raises the heart beat and takes my breath away – and I am just reading the prose, not participating in any way.

At the close of 2014 our community is some 1010 pupils and 200+ staff, working so successfully that we provide living testament to our belief that there is excellence within every child, whatever their starting points. We don’t select on artistic or creative ability and yet we are celebrating national awards holders in these fields. There is no reason for so many of our sportsmen and women to be selected for county and/or regional representation, other than they really do want to train hard, acquire the skills and put them to the test.

What the staff, be they teachers, coaches, instructors, administration or grounds staff show is an overwhelming dedication to the school, not because we ask them to show that, but because there is within our school a moral imperative to give every child that personal attention we know will make a difference.

And by way of celebration of our staff and what they can do, please enjoy watching this short video of the Senior Boys School Staff Choir at the end of term Carol Service. All of the rehearsal is done in their own time, led by John Carr, our data manager, whose skills ensure boys and girls, young and old, receive reports published out of our database.  He is a remarkable musician, and digital film maker as well.  John is seen conducting the choir, having set up the cameras in the church prior to the service. Behind every successful man is an even more successful woman, and the Senior Boys Director of Curriculum, Pauline Carr, was also on hand to ensure the cameras behaved! Senior Boys’ Director of Music, Adrian Roach also deserves enormous credit, for providing an environment in school where singing is seen to be really cool, for being open to all kinds of music trends emerging amongst students and the wider world, and for being in the forefront and leading the digitising of our provision. Two of Adrian’s pupils are now in the staff choir, Lucy and Hannah Wardman, as of course is Adrian himself, second right.

O Magnum Mysterium – Victoria

As the 17th Century Japanese Poet identified, ‘An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending upon the talent that rubs against it’.  So to in schools, we need both children and staff to be open to the ‘concept’ of excellence, even though at the outset, neither will not really know what the outcome might resolve itself to be. If we were just to concentrate on Literacy and the STEM subjects, as so much rhetoric currently coming out of DfE and politicians mouths, then that would be a surefire guarantee we would have no music, no art, no creative or dramatic life. I love the fact that we are renowned for our Science, Technological and Mathematical provision, and that many children go on to pursue these disciplines at A level and University beyond. But with so much talent in every child, it really does fulfill our mission to ensure that we surface every bit of magic that lies therein.

Have a great break and see you in 2015!

A perfect storm is brewing within the Education community around English curriculum assessment, examination, marking and reporting. Michael Gove probably lost his job directly because of it, and his successor, Nicky Morgan is already in trouble over it with the Parliamentary Education Select Committee.

If you do not already know, everything in English national assessment terms has been changed. National curriculum levels have been scrapped because long-term research identified no lasting improvement in standards. Primary school training courses abound on assessing without levels, whilst Ofsted is now making it clear that marking and assessment methods are to be changed/reduced. At secondary level, GCSEs are in turmoil, with new grading systems and ‘fatter’ English and Maths subjects coming in next September, the rest to follow in 2016. Out with grades A* to G, in with grades 10 to 1, with 4 being the equivalent of a C. Most state secondary schools reacted by shortening their pre-GCSE programmes to Years 7 and 8 only, with GCSE courses starting in Year 9 and early takes in Year 10. But the DfE now insists GCSEs can only be taken at the end of Year 11! Many A Levels are also changing from September 2015 (Geography and others in 2016, Maths in 2017). When the subjects change, they are decoupled from the AS Levels taken at the end of Year 12, so that students are to be examined on 2 years’ work by terminal written exam. In the midst of this chaos, the government has now changed its league table structures for January 2015, and changed them again for January 2016. A considerable number of GCSE subjects are no longer to be counted, such as our own iGCSE English exam, even though they are and will remain accepted in England and all over the world. You simply could not make it up.

As Academic Principal of Claires Court, I am steering us clear of the turmoil. Having abandoned the National Curriculum 7 years ago, we are now adept at measuring attainment, progress and effort as was independently confirmed at inspection last March – http://www.clairescourt.com/files/CC_REPORT_with_cover_2014.pdf. Sections 3.27 to 3.31 describe how well we were doing then, and we have continued to develop our processes carefully. What we are not going to do is leave the English national examinations system (GCSE and A levels) not least because universities and employers in this country understand them as do all higher education institutions in Europe and America. Above all, as a nation we understand the framework, we have grown up with choice at 16 and the reduction of subjects studied in the Sixth Form. That flexibility means that our 18+ year olds are already becoming pretty specialist in what they know and can do really well. Accountants, scientists, medics, linguists, designers and actors all find their niche at this stage, and it also means that in-degree work placements and exchanges with other seats of learning and industry powerhouses can be arranged easily

If your child is in Early Years to Juniors at Claires Court, we have adjusted our reports significantly to reflect more accurately how your child is performing within his/her curriculum and against the Claires Court Essentials. At secondary level, our use of Attainment gradings for subject will continue, because they align closely with how we see performance mapping onto GCSE and A Level outcomes later on. We have reduced the content of the Year 7 to Year 9 December reports to ensure teachers and pupils spend more time on curriculum activity and skill development. For those pupils with learning differences and difficulties, their individual education plans will continue to be updated each term, to keep our focus on specific improvement clear. Early in the new year, our revised offer for GCSEs, old and new, will be published to assist Year 9 pupils and parents with option choices, and meetings to support parents in those choices are planned for early February. Even though our 2015 Sixth Form handbook is already published, we will update this shortly to reflect any changes made necessary by the roll-out of the new A Levels. As with the vast majority of our publications and policies, you will find them on our website either in the ‘Parent Area’ or under the ‘Academic’ tab.

We’ll continue to keep watch as those that steward our national qualifications bicker and argue and fail to act in a timely manner. We are supposed to be teaching a totally new harder Chemistry A level  syllabus  next Autumn, but that has still to be released because QCA want to toughen up the Maths component of it substantially.  AS with the new Maths A level (delayed until 2017 now), you can’t just toughen up requirements at A level without  permitting the time for toughening up below in Years9, 10 and 11. And therein lies the rub; just because central government has decided it wants our 16 year olds to compete more  strongly  against those in Shanghai, doesn’t mean to say that degree of progress is possible. A generation ago, just 8% of children went to University, now it is closer to 50%. That’s a better measure of real progress, with the vast majority of new well paid jobs emerging at the graduate level.

The remarkable mind that brought you QI, Blackadder and Spitting Image asks one of the world’s simplest but most significant questions – what do we really need to know? What should we teach our children, and what important information should all adults have at their disposal? Legendary producer John Lloyd turns his curiosity to knowledge itself, and questions whether intelligence is really all it’s cracked up to be.

Michael Gove announced in March 2013 that the current system, by which Sixth Form students take AS levels at the end of Year 12 and then complete them at the higher A2 level in Year 13 would cease at the end of this year.  For most subjects (but not Maths and Geography), all change is currently underway, as the Examination boards scrabble to put in place 2 Year A level programmes with no half-way house available.   This is called decoupling, and although students may be able to take an AS, it is not half-the subject nor are the skills examined to be the same either. For subjects such as English, the Sciences, History,and MFL (the Russell Group Facilitating subjects) the changes are quite profound, and will in some ways lead to  a better Year 12 Educational experience, with time given over to developing the highest level skills required for leading University success, and skills perhaps not so fully tested under the current modular regime.

Losing AS levels as a half-way house to A level success is not something either the majority of schools or indeed the majority of Universities wish, and it is quite bizarre that the then Secretary of State chose to go against their recommendations.  University courses are all now modular in nature, with students being able to weave their way through areas of interest and expertise. University admission tutors like being able to review AS performance prior to making an offer, as AS performance is much more likely to indicate probable success at Degree level than broader range GCSE outcomes. Indeed the DfE’s decision to decouple AS was based on research that has now been shown to be very flawed indeed.

On 15 July 2014, Nicky Morgan was appointed Secretary of State for Education in Prime Minister David Cameron’s reshuffle, replacing Michael Gove. On her promotion, she retained her post as Minister for Women and also added the equalities brief to it, thus also becoming Minister for Women and Equalities.  She has quickly become a busy lady (no surprise there) and is doing her best to smooth the stormy waters within Education. Morgan has to work hand in glove with another impressive female leader, Glenys Stacey, who is CEO of Ofqual, an NGO that reports directly to Parliament in Westminster and the Northern Ireland Assembly. While they are independent, they give advice to Government on qualifications and assessment based on their research into these areas.  Trouble is, that research means nothing when politicians decide!

Glenys Stacey is now in the unenviable position of supervising the migration of our national qualifications through a General Election.  Unless Nicky Morgan causes a stay of execution, decoupling takes place and AS as a route to A level dies, if the Conservatives are elected to power in May next year. If Labour are elected, then AS will be recoupled to A2, the Universities will breathe a sigh of relief.  Stacey is having to openly remind schools of this fact. And therein lies the rub for teachers – whether Coalition or Conservative, our vote there goes for another 2 years of turmoil, rewriting of schemes of  work and catering for a mixed diet of coupled Maths and Geog with decoupled everything else in Year 12.  A whole raft of new resources will need to be bought or otherwise developed and that takes time.  Please don’t think this is all that secondary schools have to worry about, as Gove also blessed us with the complete reform of GCSEs at the same time.

Secondary schools with ample specialist staff such as ours can cope with the work load, though it is a sincere waste of time that could be put into the classroom and supporting individual children.  Many secondary schools don’t carry the breadth of specialism we do, so will really find this extra demand hard. Further down the line, as we look back, the ‘Haves’ will be seen to be doing so much better than the ‘Have Nots’, and there is no easy way to assist in bridging that gap.   it’s not the facts that are the problem, but the intellectual, specialist knowledge that is needed to shape academic courses to fit the criteria once revealed.  This coalition government are committed to ensuring greater equity for all, whatever their circumstances, as indeed are all the other main parties. The extraordinary turmoil this and previous governments have caused through their constant meddling with public assessment methods is not something the Teaching profession find easy to manage, so it particularly gets ‘all of our goat’ when we are told we are not doing anything to assist in improving access for the less well off.  To mix the animal metaphor…It’s difficult enough to pin the tail on the Donkey anyway, but blindfolded and with one arm, and with the said beast of burden itself hugely agitated by circumstance, the job’s well nigh impossible!