Advancing Education

Steve Rollett

CST Deputy Chief ExecutiveFollow me on twitter: @SteveRollett

www.CSTUK.org.uk The Voice of School Trusts© 2021 CST

• Learning loss in all year groups in reading. Primary between 1.7 and 2.0 months. Year 8 1.6 months, Year 9, 2 months

• Year 7 lost least: 0.9 months. Because out of school for less time than others?

• Mathematics losses greater. On average primary = 3 months. Not possible to derive robust estimates for pupils in secondary school in mathematics.

• Regional disparities in reading. Greatest loss in North East and in Yorkshire and the Humber. But, differences between regions relatively small when controlled for historic rates of progress

• Schools with high levels of disadvantage have experienced higher levels of loss than other schools, particularly in secondary (2.2 for high FSM, compared to 1.5 months for low FSM).

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“Catch up”/”Recovery” agenda - short term

What we had already:1. Catch up premium 2020/21• £80 for each pupil• £240 per pupil in specialist settings

2. National Tutoring Programme (NTP)• Tuition partners• Academic mentors

Announced this week:3. Summer schools4. “Recovery premium” = £6000 per average primary, £22,000 per average secondary5. Expansion of NTP

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NTP Tuition Partners:• Delivered by EEF• Schools buy in tutoring from approved providers• Experienced in working with schools• Subsidised: 75% reduction • Schools able to contact providers from November

NTP Academic Mentors:• Employed by the school. Salaries funded by DfE• Available in the most disadvantaged areas• Teach-first graduates• From October half-term

Key to both is alignment with school curriculum

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“Catch up”/”Recovery” agenda - longer term

Sir Kevan Collins

Education Recovery Commissioner

More teaching time?

Use of assessment?

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Things your trust might be considering currently:

• The impact of COVID / lost learning

• A strategic approach to implementing the catch-up fund

• Remote education

• Welfare and wellbeing

How we approach some of these things depends on

what we think the curriculum is for and what we

believe about how learning happens…

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Useful from Education Endowment Foundation

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https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Covid-19_Resources/Covid-19_support_guide_for_schools.pdf

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Covid-19_Resources/The_EEF_guide_to_supporting_school_planning_-

_A_tiered_approach_to_2021.pdf© 2021 CST

Proposition 1: We should place bets using the best evidence

we have

Implications for trust boards:

• Reading is key as provides access to wider curriculum• Children, subjects and localities are at different points – assessment will be key• Alignment behind well selected strategy more effective than scatter-gun?• ‘Best bet’ is high-quality teaching of a high-quality curriculum. • What bets does your trust place?

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Exam results

Employment skills

Happiness

Knowing lots Transferable skills

Social induction

Progression to next stage

What is the purpose of the

curriculum?

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What should we infer from this?

“I believed him when he said he had a lake house, until he said it’s only forty feet from the water at high tide.”

(Daniel Willingham)

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“Reading tests are knowledge tests in disguise”

Daniel Willingham

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“Knowledge and skills are intertwined, and skill progression depends upon knowledge accumulation.”

“We achieve skilled performance through committing knowledge to long-term memory and practising it.”© 2021 CST

The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armoured flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness. ‘Get me out of here,’ said Eckels. ‘It was never like this before. I was always sure I’d come through alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I’ve met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of.’ ‘Don’t run,’ said Lesperance. ‘Turn around. Hide in the Machine.’ ‘Yes.’ Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He 50 gave a grunt of helplessness. ‘Eckels!’He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling. ‘Not that way!’ The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one 55 hundred yards in six seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast’s mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun. The rifles cracked again, but their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great level of the reptile’s tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and 60 branch. The Monster twitched its jeweller’s hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulder-stone eyes levelled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris. Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.

The Tyrant Lizard raised itself. Its armoured flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crustedwith slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch andundulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down thewilderness.‘Get me out of here,’ said Eckels. ‘It was never like this before. I was always sure I’d come through alive. I hadgood guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I’ve met my match and admit it. This is toomuch for me to get hold of.’‘Don’t run,’ said Lesperance. ‘Turn around. Hide in the Machine.’‘Yes.’ Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He 50 gave a grunt ofhelplessness.‘Eckels!’He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling. ‘Not that way!’ The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one 55 hundred yards insix seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast’s mouth engulfed them in thestench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun.The rifles cracked again, but their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great level of the reptile’stail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and 60 branch. The Monster twitched itsjeweller’s hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram theminto its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulder-stone eyes levelled with the men. They saw themselvesmirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris.Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.

Where in the curriculum might pupils encounter these words?

Tyrant

undulate

exhaled

safaris

beast

reptile

(stone) idol

mountain avalanche

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Knowledge and disadvantage• Achievement gap is knowledge and vocab gap

• Vocabulary underpins knowledge and subjects

• Disadvantage knowledge gap

• Teaching generic skills can entrench gap

• Knowledge begets knowledge

• Disadvantaged pupils need knowledge curriculum most.

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Reconsidering ‘differentiation’• If differentiation equates to limited access to the curriculum,

does it cease to be differentiation? Does it instead become ‘limitation’?

• How do we ensure all children have access to the curriculum they are entitled to?

• ‘Scaffolding’ rather than differentiation

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CURRICULUM AS ENTITLEMENT

All pupils are entitled to this knowledge:

Inclusivity starts from here…

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The curriculum brought down to pupils

FragmentedEntrenched disadvantage

Exclusionary

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Ambition & high expectations for allCommon curriculum, adaptive pedagogy

Inclusive

Pupils brought up to the curriculum

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Proposition 2:Curriculum entitlement underpins equity

Implications for trust boards:• Curriculum needs to build what pupils know & remember. This is not at odds with

developing skillful, well rounded people. Avoid the dichotomy. Your vision/mission should embrace the interrelationship.

• Narrowing curriculum could be counterproductive if it limits access to vocabulary, although prioritization may be necessary for some children and phases

• Review policies which could exacerbate narrowing. Eg review KS3/4 interaction• Be cautious around reducing GCSE entries

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What is ‘progress’?

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Common problems in progression models

E.g. Levels

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History ‘Old Money’

Level 5 Pupils show their knowledge and understanding of local, national and international history by describing events, people and some features of past societies and periods in the context of their developing chronological framework. They begin to recognise and describe the nature and extent of diversity, change and continuity, and to suggest relationships between causes. They suggest some reasons for different interpretations of the past and they begin to recognise why some events, people and changes might be judged as more historically significant than others. They investigate historical problems and issues and begin to ask their own questions. They begin to evaluate sources to establish evidence for particular enquiries. They select and deploy information and make appropriate use of historical terminology to support and structure their work.

Where is the curriculum content?

A pupil in any year group could have been given this Level – whatever the topic/content they were studying. © 2021 CST

Progression model

Abstract skills

Specified content

The knowledge of the subject

We want pupils to become skilled but it doesn’t happen

without knowledge

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Components and composites

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Final performance

Composite

Component Component

Component

Component

1

A B C

D

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Christine Counsell

The curriculum is the progression model

1

2

Isolate 3

4

5 6

Return

7 8

9

Clarity of learning intentions over time

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Knowledge is structured in different ways

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Before we can respond to ‘gaps’ in knowledge we have to know what knowledge looks like

Hierarchical Horizontal

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Communities that build knowledge: the trust advantage

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Across schools:

• Subject teams• Pastoral teams• Leadership teams• Governance teams

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Proposition 3: The curriculum is the progression model

Implications for trust boards• Do our teachers have a sharp understanding of what pupils need to

know and how it fits together over time?• How does this feed into remote education?• Do our teachers use assessment effectively to find out what pupils

don’t know/haven’t remembered/misconceptions?• Do our teachers do something when they uncover this?• Do we allow for subject difference? • ‘Catch up’ could look different in different subjects• How does professional development support this thinking?

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0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

7 Aut1

7 Aut2

7 Aut3

7Aut4 7 Aut5

7 Aut6

8 Aut1

8 Aut2

8 Aut3

8 Aut4

8 Aut5

8 Aut6

9 Aut1

9 Aut2

9 Aut3

9 Aut4

9 Aut5

9 Aut6

Key Stage 3

Flight path Actual

Progress is messy

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Diagnostic Assessment

Diagnostic formative assessments will help us understand what individuals do/don’t know.

Low stakes might also help to manage to pupil anxiety.

Teachers should consider:

• Should we re-teach that material to the whole group, or move on?

• What is the right balance between standardised assessments and classroom-based diagnostic assessments?

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Proposition 4: How we think and talk about performance

changes behaviours

Implications for trust boards:

• What data do we want? Is this the same as what we need, or what we can reliably get?

• How do the decisions we make about assessment data affect practice in the classroom?

• Are we aware of the risk of drawing invalid inferences?

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Anna Freud Centre

“Longitudinal studies are showing an increase in psychological distress, loneliness and probable mental disorders among children and young people.”

“There is evidence that some groups of children and young people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic in terms of their mental health. These include children who were previously psychologically maltreated, children and young people of colour, children from low income households, children in care and LGBTQ+ children and young people.”

“Among pupils in school years 8-13, 1166 (9.9%) reported self-harming during the school closure period of May-July 2020 (UK).”

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Wellbeing - EEF

• Transition is key

• Assessment of need

• “A common misconception can be that pupils’ wellbeing and social emotional learning is separate from their academic, curriculum-based learning.”

• Wider curriculum

• Communication with parents

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Proposition 5: Wellbeing and learning the curriculum do not have to

be at odds with each otherImplications for trust boards:• How will we assess the impact of Covid-19 on pupils’ wellbeing?• What issues can we anticipate already and plan for?• What can we do to create capacity and flexibility to deal with unforeseen

issues?• How can schools avoid the academic/wellbeing dichotomy? Sensitive

pedagogies? Low stakes? Emphasizing positive? • What does teaching and learning look like on the ground? How are pupils

responding? How can we get feedback on this?

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There is a paradigm shift towards a greater emphasis on what

pupils know and remember, drawing on the best evidence we

have.

Takeaways for trustees & governors

All pupils are entitled to the best knowledge we have.

This proposition is the foundation of an equitable and

inclusive education system.

Governance is essential:

- Setting this as the strategic direction/vision

- Resource implications. Eg budget, recruitment,

development of capacity

- Support & challenge: is our curriculum the best it can be?© 2021 CST

5 propositions for discussion (pick one): Proposition 1: We should place bets using the best evidence we have

Proposition 2: Curriculum entitlement underpins equity

Proposition 3: The curriculum is the progression model

Proposition 4: How we think and talk about performance changes behaviours

Proposition 5: Wellbeing and learning the curriculum do not have to be at odds with each other

• Does your trust bet on reading? What decisions has the board made that support reading?

• How does the board develop a view of the impact of Covid-19 on its children, families and schools?

• What ‘bets’ does your trust place, and on what evidence?

• What is your trust’s curriculum intent? (What do you want the curriculum to do for young people?)

• What curriculum decisions has the trust made to support equity?

• How does the board know if our teachers have a clear understanding of what pupils need to know and how it fits together over time?

• What decisions has the board made to support a high-quality curriculum across its schools?

• How does the trust support teachers to develop their curriculum and teaching practice?

• How does the board use information about pupil performance?

• How do you seek assurance about the validity and utility of this information?

• How do the decisions the board makes about assessment data affect practice in the classroom?

• What wellbeing issues resulting from Covid-19 can you anticipate already and plan for?

• What can the board do to create capacity and flexibility to deal with unforeseen issues?

• What does teaching and learning look like on the ground? How are pupils responding? How do you know?

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