Academies – more reasons why they’re not the answer
“The issue of how successful are academies has come to the fore yet again in a number of ways. Potentially most significant could be the Select Committee’s decision to carry out an investigation into the academies programme as a whole.” Education for Everyone looks at the emerging evidence base on how successful academies are.
2016 accountability measures: the next battle for CEIAG in schools
“…the inclusion (or not) of destination data in these new accountability measures …will have a greater impact on school leaders consideration of CEIAG in their planning.” Russell George examines the Government’s proposed changes to school accountability measures - and the implications for those involved in careers education and guidance.
Succeeding is better than #winning
“Now for two statements of the bleeding obvious. One, we need more schools. No if, no buts. We need more schools. Two, we are where we are.” Mike Cameron argues that we need more schools and sets out four ways to make the system work better.
Exam reform. Another blog manifesto
I’ve written quite a few posts about exams and assessment in the last year. Some of the earlier ones were a bit of a rant; more recently, I think they are more measured. Through this blog and other related activities such as working with the Headteachers’ Roundtable, I’ve been able to meet some of the […]
What a sham! The Positive for Youth Progress Report 2013
The only thing remarkable about this recently-published report is that it is 35 pages long! How long it must have taken them to find sufficient information to produce it, heaven only knows? What it tells us about the progress on Positive for Youth ~ the so-called Government ‘youth policy’ ~ is that business as usual is the […]
The PSHE Review: Respondents and homophobic bullying in the report
In March 2013 the DfE published the outcomes of the latest PSHE review (DfE 2013). The publication of this review took over 16 months to complete from the close of the consultation process in November 2011. Unfortunately the review was problematic in the way that it did not weight responses correctly so the review made […]
Declining investment in research threatens to undermine evidence-based policymaking
The Government claims to be investing in evidence to improve policymaking - yet many departments are reducing their investment in research. The risk is that public policy is increasingly informed by partisan or partial ‘research’ - or in some cases, no research at all.
My small amount of sympathy for Stephen Twigg
I have an admission to make. I feel a small amount of sympathy for Stephen Twigg. This is not a trick or anything, it is genuine sympathy. Also a little bit of understanding for the position he is in. I know this won’t necessarily make me popular, but, hey ho, that’s just tough. So why […]