The above was me last week!!

You can’t have failed to notice that last week, in a speech about primary assessment Justine Greening announced that the government “will not introduce statutory mathematics and reading resits on children’s arrival in year 7.” It seems that sense (for once) has been seen and all the kerfuffle that was raised on Twitter/social media/blogs and even a petition may have been worth it. In a very (very, very) small way my faith in our system has been restored … just a little … a smidgeon … a jot! That is not to say that I don’t think some people in positions of power will just plough on with most of their ideas, regardless of what we, at the coal face think but it has made me even more determined to fight for things I believe in. I suppose this backtracking, on an idea that was in their manifesto during the General Election, in some form of twisted logic, may have stopped me doing that “thing” lots of people do, of saying “whats the point in getting stressed and fighting it when they’ll do what they want anyway – I may as well just do/say what they want us to do and get it over and done with?” … so for that I am grateful.

Interestingly Justine’s speech went on: “Rather, we will focus on the steps needed to ensure a child catches up lost ground. High-quality resit papers will be made available for teachers to use if they wish, as part of their ongoing assessments. In addition, we will introduce a targeted package of support to make sure that struggling pupils are supported by teachers to catch up in year 7.” Let’s deal with this:

1.  Pedant that I am: I think these 2 things should have been listed the other way around: the idea of providing tests to teachers to use should have been an “oh by the way” comment. The “targeted support” should not have been an “addition” and should be the main crux of it. I am being a complete ar$e by the way … onto more serious points …
2. “resit papers for teachers to use” … no thanks! I didn’t want them in the first place. You’ve paid for them to be written and it is now your issue to deal with it! It’s not my fault that you’ve probably spent .. oh I don’t know … “insert silly money value” that has now been wasted. Deal with it!

Interestingly, the Standards and Testing Agency in their update on 21st October, have published the below which is much more to my liking and also elaborates on what this targeted support means:

However the elephant in the room that no one has mentioned is that by raising the bar at KS2 we now have more students who are below the “expected standard” coming to us in secondary schools … nope that’s not Nellie! … the effelump is the fact that the government has effectively frozen the year 7 catch up funding. I wrote about it here -> ( More with less ) in which I give rough figures about how this is going to affect just one school. Almost every school in the country will  be in the same boat – expected to do more for less money. So, in no particular order:

• Will these “education experts” also include teachers that are able to prove demonstrably that they are making a difference with the type of students these catch up strategies are going to be aimed at? We don’t need experts we need teachers getting involved. Not academics, not researchers … teachers!
• The word “promote” worries me – will there be more cost put onto schools and will we get penalised if we don’t use the preferred programmes? What will Ofsted be looking for?

To be honest, and hats off to our primary colleagues I’ve noticed a massive difference in my new year 7 group and in a few years time, if the bar isn’t raised again, I can see the number not achieving the “expected standard” will drop but it’s the current and next few cohorts coming through that we are playing catch-up with. It worries me that by the time we see the benefits of any support programmes, politicians will start meddling and we start the whole merry-go-round all over again. We don’t have years to play with or the time to wait for things to be evaluated if we want to make a big difference. We need something now! In our day jobs we use lots of the old “springboard 7” stuff – lots of it is fabulous and easily adapted. Yes it needs bringing up to date but it’s a good starting point. This year, we also sourced some key stage 3 intervention workbooks that our “nurture” groups dip in and out of that we are trialling … all supported by carefully planned teaching.

What I’d like to see is a real focus on support in terms of resources, ideas and a maybe even a scheme of learning focussed on transition from KS2 to KS3 – a short-term plan that enables teachers to assess whether students have the prerequisite knowledge for secondary school and then are able use their professional judgement as to how to fill in the gaps – supported by resources etc that are proven to work. Oh I don’t know … a sort of “springboard 7 for the 21st century” (I was going to write “Springboard 7 on speed” but decided it was a poor reference to use!)

Regardless of all that, what I’d really, really like (**bursts into a Spice Girls song**) to see is a committment from the government that the money they have saved from not giving £500 per pupil this year (given the increase in numbers!) is still spent on year 7 catch up programmes. ALL OF IT! Here’s an idea … what about the “difference” in cash being spent (and accounted for) by the government on producing and providing schools with resources that work … schools need assurances that the money isn’t going to keep getting eroded … cap the drop for schools or just be honest and say it is now £400 (or whatever amount) a pupil and the rest is being used for centrally provided *whatever is decided* … that way schools will be forced to at least consider using whatever is provided to them but please don’t make any programmes compulsory and then add insult to injury by making schools pay for it from the already reduced funding!

Apologies! This was meant to be a short and sweet post saying “yay … no year 7 resits!” …. bugger!