The whole of education is underpinned by the relationship between the teacher and pupil.
As the quote above from Sidney Hook states, you don't remember how you were taught but you do remember who taught you and what an inspiration they were. You remember the relationship that you formed with your teacher - the personal connection between you that remains with you to this day.
Every pupil has their own personal learning journey.
Teachers have the power to inspire and encourage. Every step of the way, the pupil learns something new - guided and instructed by their teacher and so learn what motivates them, what inspires them and what they want to become as they become older. Over time, they will grow in knowledge, confidence and learn so much about themselves and the world around them.
Remember these wonderful and true words from Ross Crockett..
“If there’s anyone who is in a position to bring positive change into the world...
When working within cycling both at the 2012 Olympics and onwards with the SKY or INEOS racing team, Sir Dave Brailsford employs a significant principal in all he does.
The 1% principal is based on the small changes that TOGETHER make a big change.
As Brailsford said, Speaking to the BBC…
“The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of, that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together. There’s fitness and conditioning, of course, but there are other things that might seem on the periphery, like sleeping in the right position, having the same pillow when you are away and training in different places. They’re tiny things but if you clump them together it makes a big difference.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34247629
He believed that if it were possible to make a 1% improvement in a whole host of areas, the cumulative gains would end...
The new Ofsted framework states that inspections will not examine any internal school data.
But, in practice, what does this mean for schools?
What have staff said?
Feedback from Staff who have gone through the new framework stated that conversations were not data-centred but did assume you had a good working knowledge of the external data for your school.
Data was discussed as an informer to the team’s approach, not as the sword of Damocles it has been. Context was investigated in thorough detail, giving us a chance to tell our story.
DAN MORROW - CEO, Woodland Academies Trust
However, when you read on, you see that the external data does inform what the deep dives look to see...
Instead, the deep dives commenced with immediate observations of staff through learning walks (all accompanied by phase/subject leads) and through hearing children read: the year one children who had not reached GLD, the year twos who had not secured the phonics-screening check, and the...
The new Ofsted Inspection Framework speaks a lot about Curriculum.
Whilst the new directed focus has been welcomed, there is a lot of misunderstanding about what this means in practice. Schools are buying in help from outside sources against Ofsted Advice and Ofsted are constantly claiming there is no "Ofsted curriculum".
So what will inspectors be looking for in your school curriculum from September 2019 onwards?
What do they mean by a good or outstanding "quality of education"?
In this article, we hope to help answer these questions by looking at Amanda Spielman's recent speech, the results of the Ofsted research project and the Ofsted School inspection Handbook.
Amanda Spielman
In a speech in 2019 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Amanda Spielman was discussing the Ofsted research into Curriculum and what this means moving forward.
The quality of education judgement does consider how well pupils are doing in national assessments and qualifications. But this should be the reflection of what children have...
In our previous article, we had a look at Ofsted indicators regarding strong/weak Curriculum Design.
In this article, we'll have a look at some of Ofsted's concerns.
Curriculum Design
What is curriculum? Amanda Spielman, Chief Inspector of Ofsted, has said:
The curriculum really is the most important thing to think about as educators. As I said earlier, it’s the ‘what’. The very essence of what we want children to learn. It’s how we prepare them, as best we can, for what they might face next. And to leave children unprepared is, frankly, a dereliction of duty, I’m sure you’d agree. ...
Sequencing does have a part to play here. ... So a degree of signposting, of showing children the way, is needed. It’s not enough to simply put everything out there and hope that something sticks.This isn’t about having some beautiful tick list of what a child should do, and when. If a child is having difficulty with something, it’s about stepping in...
In previous articles, we took a look at what Ofsted's inspections under the new Inspection Framework will look like from September 2019, and how they may assess Work Scrutinies and Lesson Visits.
In this article, we will look at how Ofsted may assess Curriculum design, based on the results of the research project that took place to help create the new Framework.
Assessment of Curriculum
The 25 indicators used in the research model will no doubt be narrowed down by the first inspections in September 2019.
They revolved around:
Intent
Rationale,
Ambition,
Concepts,
Implementation
Subject leadership,
Subject knowledge,
Equitable delivery,
Planning the progression model,
Breadth and depth, and
Assessment.
Of the 25 quality indicators, Ofsted's research has found that some of them were either more highly correlated with each other in models or were considered by Inspectors are more essential.
These are:
Intent
There is a clear and coherent rationale for the curriculum design.
The curriculum is at least as ambitious as the standards set by the national curriculum/external qualifications.
Curriculum principles include the requirements of centrally prescribed aims
Implementation
Subject...
So what is a Deep Dive?
During an inspection, inspectors are not going to concentrate on the ambitions or intentions of senior leaders, but rather "let's see that in action together".
The Deep Dives are principally to gather evidence in relation to "quality of education", and the lesson visits can also gather evidence in relation to "behaviour and attitudes".
They will have a series of deep dives on particular subjects:
For secondary schools, they will sample four to six subjects.
For primary schools, they will sample three to five subjects. It will always include reading, it will usually include maths, and there will also be one or more foundation subjects, including one that is taught during the inspection.
In small schools, this may be adapted as appropriate.
Evidence
Each deep dive will look at the following, usually jointly with school and curriculum leaders, and will try to connect these different pieces of evidence:
Senior Leaders
Evaluating intent for the curriculum
including their understanding of its implementation and impact.
Curriculum...
With the launch of the new Ofsted Education Inspection Framework and School Inspection Handbook, what will inspections under the new framework be actually like?
For the latest updated version – click here
Ofsted Inspections
There will be main parts of the inspection regime:
Pre-inspection
Deep dives
Bringing it together
Most inspections will generally be two days (apart from smaller schools), but preparation will start the day before.
Next Steps
https://youtu.be/DI4Fc2yizI0
Pre-inspection
Ofsted will phone the school by 2pm on the day before the inspection, to let the school know who is coming, confirm things such as number of pupils on roll. They will also send emails requests that certain information (attendance analysis, exclusions, bad behaviour records) is available to inspectors by 8 a.m. the next day (inspectors will not arrive on school before this time).
There will then be a more substantive call with the headteacher (or other school leaders if not available). This will focus on three aspects:
.
The school's context, and progress since the previous inspection
including elements for...
A Guide to Progress 8
This guide is designed to help alleviate the confusion between the different bandings.
It is also available as a video on our YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/9xTPAs20BeA
Progress 8 Bandings
In early 2017 the DfE categorised schools into 5 different Progress Bandings:
But it is easy to get things wrong.
BBC News website
The BBC News website did so on 16 April 2019, when it said:
A school's performance is measured through pupils' progress, called Progress 8, via a scoring system of between -1 and 1, with the average being 0.A score lower than 0 is recognised as not achieving the minimum standard expected by the government, with -1 being well below average.
There are three things are wrong with these two sentences:
Firstly, Progress 8 is not a scoring system of between -1 and 1. There are no such arbitrary limits, and in 2018 there are 70 mainstream schools with a Progress 8 score below -1, and 50 schools above +1.A score...
