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assessment
Towards an Assessment Paradigm Shift
Despite my reservations about some of the big data measures that are used to judge schools, I am hopeful that our discourse is shifting the debate on assessment in a very positive direction. If this continues it will represent an important paradigm shift with positive consequences for students’ learning and their overall school experience. The … Continue reading
Maximising P8: Macro-Micro Thinking – and Ethics.
In my view it’s a sad state of affairs that we are a long way down the road towards absolute Data Delusion; where teachers, school leaders and commentators are engaged in discussions about the quality of education provided by a school via a single two digit number that purports to capture a measure of the … Continue reading
Too Much Teaching is Wasted
Let me give you some information: (Try to imagine that you’re going to learn it.) The Earth-Sun distance is used as unit of distance called the Astronomical Unit. 1 AU. The Earth-Moon distance is 0.0026 AU to 2 significant figures. The nearest Star is Proxima Centauri (part of the Alpha Centauri system. Pronounced ‘Sen-TOR-eye’). The … Continue reading
Teaching and assessment for top-end success in new GCSEs
I’ve been looking at the specimen papers for GCSEs in English, Maths and Science to get a feel for the expectations at the top-end. Although, in theory, schools should have been engaging with these materials for a while, with Year 11s ready to go this May and Year 10s already on the road with Science, … Continue reading
10 Must-Read Books for Better Teaching
This selection is my current top ten book recommendations for teachers. Continue reading
More issues with Progress 8.
In this post I’m going to set out a few of the issues I see with the use of Progress 8 data, especially as one of the indicators of school effectiveness in inspections and in general school-to-school comparison and evaluation. For further reading on Progress 8, you want also wish to read the following: My … Continue reading
Big Questions: Assessment
I’ve explored this issue extensively in some previous posts that might be worth revisiting for additional context: Assessment, Standards and the Bell Curve Defining the Butterfly: knowing the standards to set the standards The Assessment Uncertainty Principle Authentic Assessment and Progress: Keeping it Real KS3 Assessment: 8 steps to a workable system Over the last … Continue reading
Rethinking marking and feedback. It’s all about the response.
At HGS we’ve been thinking hard about how to make sure teacher feedback has maximum impact and, recently, I’ve been revisiting some blog posts that continue to inform my thoughts on this important area: ‘Close the Gap’ Marking: a whole-school approach used at Saffron Walden High School, focusing all feedback on student response. Marking … Continue reading
Dissecting Progress 8. The good, the bad and the ugly.
Now that Progress 8 has been born and looks like it’s here to stay, there’s no use wallowing for too long in outrage at the data-garbage bonkersness of it all. We might all agree that averaging out every child’s achievements across the school via a super-convoluted and arbitrary algorithm to generate a single number with … Continue reading
Exam grading is inherently flawed; but there’s no conspiracy.
To put this post in context, previously I have written various other posts about the nature of exam grading, the way OfQual operates, the bell-curve of norm referencing and its role in setting standards, the degree of error that is inherent in any assessment and grading process. Here is a selection: https://headguruteacher.com/2013/08/31/ofqual-insights-more-thoughts-on-exams/ https://headguruteacher.com/2014/05/27/the-assessment-uncertainty-principle/ … Continue reading
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