Governors of Hallfield School have today announced the appointment of a new Headmaster.

Keith Morrow, currently Headmaster at The Elms School in Long Eaton in Nottingham, will take on the headship role at Hallfield School from September 2018.

Keith will be the 14^th Headmaster to lead the independent school in Edgbaston in its 139 year history.

He will be taking over the helm from the Acting Headmaster Richard Batchelor and Deputy Head Mrs Anne Oliver who will both remain at Hallfield School as Deputy Heads. Mrs Oliver will also retain her responsibility as Head of Pre-Prep and EYFS.

Speaking of his appointment, Mr Morrow said: “I am absolutely delighted to have been appointed as the next Headmaster of Hallfield School.

“Hallfield has an excellent reputation and a distinguished history. I am particularly pleased that Mr Batchelor and Mrs Oliver will be assisting me as Deputy Heads as I work with the governors, staff and parents to lead Hallfield into a very exciting future.”

Keith has 17 years of experience as a Headteacher, ten of them at The Elms. He has worked as an Ofsted Additional Inspector and held a number of whole school roles including the co-ordination of mathematics, assessment and ICT and has taught Geography in KS3.

Keith has worked as an External Adviser for Cambridge Education and advised Governing Bodies on the performance of Headteachers and is also a Reporting Inspector for ISI (Independent Schools Inspectorate).

Keith Uff, Chairman of Governors, said: “Mr Morrow is an experienced Headmaster who has led The Elms with great success. We look forward to working with Keith and the wider leadership team to initiate an exciting new chapter in the history of Hallfield School.”

For more information about Hallfield School visit www.Hallfieldschool.co.uk

With teaching-to-the-test, gaming and curriculum-narrowing all on the rise, RSA issues call-to-arms 

• Former Number 10 policy adviser to Nick Clegg warns that school leaders’ growing desperation to meet the government’s high-stakes performance targets is leading to decisions that are not in the best interests of children and young people.
• While acknowledging the important role the accountability system played in raising standards over the last 25 years – particularly in the basics of numeracy and literacy – Julian Astle [biog], the RSA’s education director, argues in a new essay that the educational costs of this system now outweigh the benefits and that the risks of inaction are greater than the risks of reform.
• With gaming – particularly with regards to pupil admissions and exclusions – growing, and teaching-to-the-test so common it is mistaken for good practice, Astle urges the head of Ofsted Amanda Spielman to follow through on her suggestion that Ofsted referees ‘the game’, looking not just at what schools are achieving, but at how they are achieving it.
• The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) urges everyone with a stake in our school system to join the debate about how, without abolishing tests and dismantling the entire accountability system, we can support teachers to focus on the substance of education, rather than the proxy goals of targets and league tables and the tactics for hitting and climbing them.

 

Teaching-to-the-test, gaming and a narrowing of the curriculum are damaging the education quality in too many English schools, a new essay by Julian Astle, a former Number 10 adviser and education chief at the RSA [Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce], warns.

The Ideal School Exhibition is the result of Astle’s travels across England in search of inspiring ‘mission-led’ schools that are bucking a growing and concerning trend: that of schools narrowing their focus and hollowing out their teaching in the scramble to meet the constantly shifting demands of the government’s accountability system.

These schools provide a glimpse of what England’s school system could look like if more headteachers could escape the warped logic, skewed priorities and perverse incentives the accountability system all too often produces.

But Astle warns of a growing problem in many English schools of:

• Narrowing the curriculum – particularly as pupils approach primary school SATs and GCSEs, when schools increasingly focus their time, energy and resources only on those subjects that will affect their league table position.
• ‘Teaching-to-the-test’ – the practice whereby schools drill pupils in the tactics and techniques of exam taking and focus their instruction on the specific demands of the test and the mark scheme – which not only turns young people off learning but which generates superficial, temporary and illusory educational gains.
• Gaming – particularly the practices of manipulating the admissions and exclusions system to attract high-performing students and remove low-performing pupils, and of entering large numbers of pupils for easy-to-obtain qualifications of little interest or value to the learner.

To tackle these problems, Astle recommends:

• Training teachers in the use and misuse of assessment to develop a deeper understanding within the profession of how teaching-to-the-test impedes, rather than supports, learning.
• Making explicit Ofsted’s emerging role as: the guardian of a broad and balanced curriculum; a counterbalance to the pressures of the DfE’s numbers-based accountability system; and the body mandated and expected to referee the ‘game’, looking not only at what schools achieve, but how they achieve it.
• Withdrawing the ‘right’ for schools to act as their own admissions authority, and engaging with the RSA’s proposed Commission on School Admissions to ensure that the ‘low road to school improvement’ (manipulating the admissions system rather than improving teaching) is permanently closed.
• Abolishing the Ofsted ‘outstanding’ category and handing the definition of excellence back to the profession. Ofsted should play a role more akin to the ‘Food Standards Agency’ than ‘restaurant critic’, focusing solely on identifying serious underperformance. As the government and the inspectorate step back, so teachers, coming together through bodies like researchED and the Chartered College of Teaching, should step up, ensuring that research, collaboration and evidence-led practice drive-up standards.
• Creating a contestable ‘middle-tier’ to ensure that every school – particularly struggling or isolated schools without a high-performing local authority or Multi-Academy Trust behind them – is provided with timely and effective external challenge and support, with middle-tier bodies that cannot demonstrate an ability to maintain or raise standards replaced by ones that can.

The publication of The Ideal School Exhibition kick-starts the RSA’s work to convene a new movement aimed at unlocking the untapped potential of an overworked and disempowered teaching profession and to get our schools focused on the pivotal relationship at the heart of teaching: between the teacher, the pupil and the text – the real substance of education.

The essay will be launched today [16 November] in central London, with speakers including:

• David Laws, former schools minister, now executive chairman, Education Policy Institute
• Daisy Christodoulou, director of education, No More Marking
• Peter Hyman, co-founder and executive headteacher, School 21
• Julian Astle, director of creative learning and development, RSA.

Julian Astle, education director at the RSA, said:

“Having worked at the centre of government, I know that the architects of England’s school accountability system are motivated by the best of intentions: to expose serious under-performance and raise standards.

“But as the grip of that system has tightened over the last 25 years, and the catalogue of unintended consequences and perverse incentives has grown ever longer, it is hard to not to conclude that the costs now outweigh the benefits. We have reached that critical point where positive change becomes possible – where the risks of inaction are higher than the risks of reform.

“The RSA calls on everyone who recognises the importance of assessment and accountability, but who shares our concerns that the system as currently designed is damaging children’s education, to join the debate about how to reform that system for the better.”

 

Peter Hyman, co-founder and executive headteacher at School 21 in Stratford, said:

“This report outlines with vivid clarity the pressures on schools to meet the accountability framework of Ofsted and exam results. It shows that it is difficult but possible to drive through a more expansive vision of education that meets the needs of these complex times.  And it makes the case compellingly for a reform agenda that allows a more rounded view of education – the development of head, heart and hand.”

 

Daisy Christodoulou, education director of No More Marking, said:

“Exams are only an indirect measure of academic achievement, which means it is possible for them to be gamed and manipulated in such a way that they lose their original meaning.

“This report makes some vitally important points about why this is so damaging, and why the pursuit of exam results and accountability metrics therefore has to be informed by an understanding of the curriculum, and of what it means to master a subject.”

 

Ed Vainker, co-founder and headteacher at Reach Academy in Feltham, said:

“While clearly setting out why schools need to be held accountable for their performance, this paper highlights a truth that everyone at Reach Academy in Feltham would recognise: that ultimately, quality and excellence cannot be imposed from outside through regulation – they need to be owned by the school, and driven by a sense of social mission and moral purpose.”

 

David Laws, former schools minister and now executive chairman, Education Policy Institute, said:

“Anyone who cares about the quality of the education England’s school children are receiving would do well to consider the warnings contained in this thoughtful essay. Ensuring the accountability system creates the right incentives, and drives the right behaviours, is a key priority.”

• CATs taken by Year 7 children at beginning of secondary school as a measurement of intelligence and a predictor of GCSE grades may put a ‘glass ceiling’ on academic ability and potential, according to study

 

• Nearly three quarters (70%) of Year 7 teachers use the test results to inform level of support given to both the neediest and most adept of pupils yet only 8% believe CATs are very accurate at predicting eventual GCSE performance

 

• 68% of teachers feel demoralised and unmotivated in their job from not being able to help most students outperform their CATs predicted grades

 

London – 16 November 2017: CATs (Cognitive Ability Test) – an assessment widely used when children start secondary school in order to gauge intelligence and predict GCSE grades, could inadvertently be limiting children’s academic progress and preventing them from achieving the highest possible grades, according to a new study published today.

 

Glass ceiling over achievement

 

The research*, commissioned by UK education technology firm Zzish, found that almost 4 out of 5 (79%) secondary school teachers believed that CATs – whose results also determine which learning groups children are likely to be placed in class based on their predicted learning pace – may be putting a glass ceiling over children’s ability and potential.

 

One rationale for this is because teaching programmes that are heavily informed by CATs results, at best, only ensure that grade predictions (e.g. C and B grades) are fulfilled rather than exceeded (A and A* grades).

 

CATs tests are generally regarded in the industry as having a high level of validity – that is, its believed that 95% of the time, the results and predictions it yields for pupils’ academic progress and performance five years later is said to be accurate*.  Three quarters (75%) of secondary school teachers who teach Year 7 who say that they use student progress against CATs predictions in order to decide which students to focus their teaching efforts on, say they do so to ensure underachieving pupils get back on track to attain national average levels of achievement across core curricular subjects – yet only 8% believe unequivocally in its accuracy.

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

 

While the assessment is said to be useful in identifying moderate learning difficulties, 68% of teachers admit to feeling demoralised and unmotivated in their job because they were unable to able to help most of their students outperform their CATs predicted grades.

 

This is particularly true of secondary school Mathematics teachers (66%) and is potentially symptomatic of a wider disengagement problem in the discipline and a critical decline in students pursing it further beyond GCSE.

 

Demoralisation in teaching is a pervasive issue that continues to beleaguer the profession, where overworked teachers feel that there aren’t enough resources to make a meaningful impact on pupil progression and outcome – but demotivation is particularly troubling. An eighth (12%) of teachers in the study who do not use CATs prediction to inform their teaching effort say that students generally fail to exceed their CATs predictions so using the results in this way is not a good use of time.

 

Hope for breaking a self-fulfilling prophecy?

 

Despite the apparent sense of helplessness that teachers feel in being unable to help a majority of children realise their full academic potential, 78% agree that – with the right teaching and support, many children could still outperform their CATs predictions. An overwhelming 95% of secondary teachers say that if they had more time and resources, they would even be able to transform children who are underachieving into high achievers.

 

Just under two thirds (65%) believe that education technology could be the route to more effective teaching and learning and by extension the key for breaking the self-fulfilling prophecy of CATs scores, but current classroom technology is failing to drive mastery of subjects, optimise teachers’ time and convince sceptics of its efficacy.

 

Nearly all in this group (94%) believed that – as part of a strategy to improve academic performance – education technology had the potential to enhance both children’s enjoyment of learning and their enjoyment of teaching – thereby significantly increasing positive outcomes.

 

“The CATs system was well intended, but we have inadvertently designed a system around them that reinforces student predictions rather than one that aims to excel them. Students who are behind on predicted progress are given extra help to catch up whereas those that are on track are left alone,” commented Charles Wiles, CEO of Zzish.

 

“Whilst predictions can add value to our teaching they should not be used to set a glass ceiling on achievement. All children of all abilities should be encouraged to achieve their full potential no matter what their predictions say. To do this we must design systems focused on this mission. The Education Endowment Foundation, for example, has carried out research that shows techniques such as mastery-based learning and self-cognition can have a tremendous impact on helping students progress faster.”

 

He continued: “At Zzish we are focused on encoding these and other discoveries into software tools for teachers so that they can more easily apply these techniques in the classroom, save time and help their students achieve more.  For example, Zzish makes it much easier for teachers to differentiate their teaching resulting in students of all abilities achieving improvements of 8-10% in standardised test scores for science. And our mastery dashboards are automatically populated by playing fun classroom quiz games saving teachers hours of time each week in tracking student progress against learning objectives.”

 

Wiles, who is a former Google product manager and holds a doctorate in robotics and artificial intelligence, was motivated to set up Zzish, the leading edtech venture in 2014 when – as a single parent – he was trying to get his smart but disengaged and recently bereaved teenage son to enjoy school where he was struggling in the bottom sets.

“I just felt my son’s test scores were not reflective of his true ability,” Wiles confides. “I was also really surprised at how passive his teachers were in response to my request that we get him up to the level to do Higher Maths and Triple Science.  They tried to convince me that doing the easier courses would not impact his ability to get into the top universities. It also reminded me of another teacher who told me that the tests that students take when they join secondary school, aged 11, are 95% predictive of their final GCSE grades that ‘it doesn’t matter’ what or how subjects are taught; ‘it would make a marginal difference’ to the final outcome. But I believed that something positive could be done. ”

The eureka moment occurred when, one day at work, Charles got a notification from the SongPop app he played with his daughter, alerting him that it was now his turn to answer a music quiz they were currently playing. Wiles thought, “wouldn’t it be good if this was an educational quiz rather than a pop one? And what if that same app took the performance data and diagnosed learning gaps that, through targeted play, could help a child memorise and master a subject?”

 

Today, 80,000 teachers from 110 countries and a million students currently use it. Last year, Zzish was a finalist in the Teach Secondary’s Technology & Innovation Awards 2016 for its role in improving standards of teaching and learning at Key Stages 3 and 4 during the 2015/16 academic year. One school professed that it has improved test scores by 10% in six months. It is also a finalist in this year’s E-Assessment Awards for Best Use Of Formative Assessment. In 2015, Zzish was shortlisted as an EdTech 20 startup in recognition of its innovation and growth, selected as a Future 30 business at the Bett Show 2015, and also one of only two edtech startups accepted on the 2014 TechStars London program from a pool of 1,200 applicants.

 

The Chancellor promised to “build a Britain for the future” in his first Autumn Budget but for schools and academies, it is difficult to see how his announcements will make a significant impact warns Kreston Reeves.

Phillip Reynolds at Kreston Reeves comments: “The one positive to note was the fact that the Chancellor avoided the temptation to reduce the business VAT threshold below £85,000 which would have severely impacted upon academy schools’ ability to generate additional business income. But academies should be warned, the threshold has only been frozen for two years which means a potential reduction will occur at some point.”

“In terms of additional funding boosts, the Chancellor announced an additional £600 per extra pupil which takes maths or further maths A-levels. This pot of money, £80 million, has no restriction on numbers either so no doubt many schools up and down the country will be encouraging pupils to consider a maths A-level going forward to help boost funds. But more pupils taking a certain subject will mean a need for more teachers.”

“Luckily, the Chancellor saw this potential issue and has promised an additional £27m to expand the Teaching for maths programme plus a further £40m for maths teachers to be trained at the Further Education Centre of Excellence. Whether these pots of money will have any impact remains to be seen or whether we have enough teachers available to help go on these programmes is another question altogether.”

More pupils taking A-Level maths and (hopefully) more maths teachers training them will lead to a need for more space. Another announcement was for £18m to be made available for specialist maths schools up and down the country. There were no clues on how this funding will be accessible yet, but watch this space!

One further boost for schools, not announced, was that full-fibre broadband will be available for 100 schools in the UK with the those in the East Midlands being the first to benefit in early 2018.

Finally, schools will see an additional £84m available to help upskill computer science teachers.

Unfortunately, no news on the National Funding Formula and no additional, more generic, funding for schools. But this is hardly a surprise, as it seems any additional funding given these days has restrictions to it.

Phillip Reynolds concludes: “In summary, the Chancellor again missed the opportunity to reduce the funding struggles for school but the Budget is going to give us lots of maths and computer science geeks for the future…whether we’ll have enough teachers or schools around to provide them is another question.”

Speaking in response to the Budget announcement today, David Hughes, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges, said:

“I said last week that the Chancellor should take a long term and moral view of investment in young people and adults to address the skills challenges which he has so eloquently described in today’s Budget. Unfortunately, he has chosen to make short term decisions which tinker at the edges. The uncertainty around Brexit may explain this cautious approach and we would hope to see more long term consideration in the next spending review.

“Having said that, we have to welcome the new investment in the National Retraining Scheme, the focus on maths and the extra £20 million for colleges to deliver T Levels. It highlights the commitment to high quality technical education. The prominence the Chancellor gave to skills in his speech today suggests that the Government is finally understanding the critical role colleges have in a post-Brexit world.

“The Chancellor did, however, miss the opportunity to address the chronic underfunding of all 16 to 19-years-olds in education and training. The case we made in our joint campaign with school and college bodies shows that 16 to 19 funding levels overall remain inadequate to support young people to enter adult life. This must be addressed in the next Budget and Spending Review.”