In the last couple of weeks I’ve come across “several” (that’s me being cagey when I mean “lots of”) teachers that didn’t know about Ofquals Maths GCSE research project (more details -> HERE ) . I didn’t find this startling given that they also didn’t know about the Glenys Stacey letter that effectively asked the exam boards not to publish any further “Sample Assessment Materials”. (I also posted about this IN THIS POST )
Despite the fact that I genuinely feel that this news is really important, what I am more concerned about is that “decision changing” information isn’t getting through to teachers at the coal-face. In my opinion the DFE and Ofqual aren’t really helping themselves as they appear to be VERY VERY selective about what they choose to publish on their site as publications. Interestingly the Glenys Stacey letter hasn’t yet been published and whilst there is information about the research project, as I’ve said before, without the letter from Glenys this project seems innocuous and nothing to worry about. I suspect that a decision has been made to try to play down the fact that the accreditation process from start to finish with the new maths GCSE has been a debacle.
This is further supported by the fact that there was such a small window of time to get involved (4 or 5 days!) in the research project. The credibility of this project is also in doubt, in my mind on at least two fronts:
- In terms of the number of students asked to sit the papers, if they get 4 or 5000 students to do them this represents less than 1% of an annual cohort. Doing a back of a fag packet calculation the number of schools involved equates to less than 0.5% of secondary schools which CANNOT be representative.
- This brings me to the second point about whether any selection criteria was used to select the schools, or whether it was a case of “first come-first served” and those schools that got in first were chosen to take part.
As you know I’ve already requested through the “nicey, nicey” route a copy of a letter between Nick Gibb and Ofqual and have yet to hear anything, so it looks like I’ll be going down the FOI route over half term unless I hear anything before then (I am aware that a copy of the letter has been released previously when requested so can’t see what the issue is with my request).
On a similar note I know that I’m not the only one with concerns about the whole process and to be honest I can’t imagine any of the exam boards are taking this lightly either. All of that is before we consider the views of other interested parties who may have views (I know they do, in fact, have views but am waiting for them to publish their letters themselves!) including some of the maths associations etc. I am sure this is not the last we hear about this.
I am not a raving loony, obsessed with this. All I want is a system that is fair, open and gives our students a level of education that they deserve.
