Tomorrow the National Union of Teachers will debate whether teachers ought to boycott the government's proposed 'tests for 4-year olds'. But the NUT are missing a trick. Instead of pushing teachers into looking like work-shirkers, why not encourage parents to … Read More
After the recent Guardian story about academies paying millions of pounds to private firms for educational services there has been a surge of interest in the way schools are spending taxpayer money. It is important to remember that academies are not … Read More
This month my column in the Guardian Education looks at Ofsted and the problem of being a teacher trying to meet standards when they seem to be constantly shifting. Writing about Ofsted when you've never been a headteacher is a … Read More
The phrase 'educational inequality' has crept quietly into England's edu-policy lexicon and displaced the previously much-used phrase 'educational disadvantage' - but we need to be careful. There is a crucial difference between the two and I'm concerned that the first is … Read More
Last week I presented a poster at the Comparative & International Education Conference 2013 of some tentative findings from a discourse analysis of education policy implementation in England and New Zealand. The purpose of the analysis is to see what … Read More
The Coalition's education ministers seem convinced that academy-chains are "the next big thing". Money is available for academy sponsors to take over failing(ish) schools, and chains are an increasing player in upcoming 'Free Schools'. Theoretically, 'successful' chains will deliver the … Read More
I recently put in a Freedom of Information Request for the distribution of marks in the 2012 GCSE English Controlled Assessments. I did this because I read the @deevybee blog on the Phonics Test data with some interest and wondered … Read More
In a recent LKMCo article I suggested that 'accountability measures are eating themselves' as the DfE are poised to introduce a new performance measure designed to correct errors in a previous (yet-still-to-be-published) measure. The problem for the new measure is that … Read More