Ofsted, Secondary Assessment and Children's Mental Health

This morning's Education and Equalities Committee began with a discussion of children's mental health. In response to the DfE proposals on mental health 'first aid' training in schools, the NUT has used 'In Conversation' to discuss this with secondary school teachers. 88% of teachers surveyed thought that the number of students with complex mental health problems was increasing , whilst 67% didn't feel the pastoral support for students was sufficient.

A number of teachers reported positive approaches in their school towards addressing children's mental health and the committee agreed to seek to publicise some of these, whilst not ignoring the causes of increasing mental health problems amongst children and the inadequacy of funding for specialist services to address this.

Primary Assessment Consultation Continues

Much of this month's Education and Equalities Committee was spent discussing the NUT's strategy on primary assessment. With the recent House of Common's Select Committee Report and the Testing the Water report conducted on behalf of Pearson, not to mention our own Exam Factories report and The Mismeasurement of Learning by Reclaiming Schools, it is clear that the government cannot ignore the serious issues with primary assessment any longer.

They have opened a consultation on primary assessment and yet, far from improving the situation, the main recommendation of this consultation is the replacement of KS1 SATs with a compulsory baseline test at age 4. You can access and respond to the consultation here.

Putting Children First

I am sick to the back teeth of the reductionist, box-ticking, curriculum-narrowing, enthusiasm-crushing, soul-destroying, high-stakes Exam Factory culture that hangs, like a dark oppressive cloud of broken dreams, over our schools and our children’s education.

OK. That may seem a little strong but, if like me, you are a primary school teacher, or have a child in primary school, I suspect you know where I am coming from.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to assessment. How could I be? It is at the very heart of what I do as a teacher. I assess children’s learning from the moment they enter my classroom at 8.40am until I finish my marking at 11pm. I assess through targeted questioning during whole class teaching, through in depth discussion during independent and group work. I assess through marking written work, and taking notes of oral work and contributions to discussion. I probe children’s understanding, looking for misconceptions through which to take learning forward. And yes, I assess through setting and marking tests when that is the most effective way of gathering the information I need.

Teaching by Numbers vs Professionalism in Education

There was a lot of discussion at this year's NUT Conference about the impact that the increasing obsession with data has on education - the pressure towards teaching by numbers - and of teacher professionalism as the alternative to this.

Most teachers would describe themselves as education professionals but what does this actually mean?