Reading Assessment- Moving the goalposts

Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy from Reception OnwardsColin Harrison University of Nottingham

"I am not moving anything – the badgers

are moving the goalposts. You are dealing with a

wild animal, subject to the vagaries of weather, disease and breeding

patterns."

Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary, 9 October 2013

"I am not moving anything – the badgers are moving the

goalposts. You are dealing with a wild animal, subject to the vagaries of weather, disease

and breeding patterns."

How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for improved literacy and numeracy levels

National Assessment - Rule Number One:

•All goalposts must be moved on a regular basis





• “PISA tests: UK stagnates” (BBC, Dec 2013)• “In relation to other countries, the UK has actually slipped ” (Daily

Telegraph, 3 Dec 2013)

”But why?- do we actually NEED national tests?

… and how are we REALLY doing in international

comparisons such as PISA?"


• “PISA tests: UK stagnates” (BBC, Dec 2013)• “In relation to other countries, the UK has actually slipped ”

”By the way- do we actually NEED national tests?




• “PISA tests: UK stagnates” (BBC, Dec 2013)• “In relation to other countries, the UK has actually slipped ”• The UK score actually went up from 494 to 499 (which would have put

us up from 26th to 19th in 2009)• The 2013 UK improvement was greater than that of Australia, USA,

Finland, Sweden (but below that of China, Taiwan, South Korea…)

”By the way- do we actually NEED national tests?




• All goalposts to be scrapped in September 2015• Schools to design their own goalposts• £10,000 prize for best design• But all goals will have to be smaller than before• And all schools will need to remember what the old goalposts were like,

even though they’re using the new ones• From 2016, at KS1, schools can choose to play with pretend goalposts





• Your school will be above ‘floor standard’ at KS2 if your pupils make ‘sufficient progress’ in achieving goals in reading, writing and maths

• Not every school will make ‘sufficient progress’ – 15% will fail• Schools to use standardized goalposts for reading and maths, but may

design their own goalposts for writing and science• KS1 Reading test- the football match is 30 mins each way, but the teacher is

the ref and can add extra time– might include poems, stories, non-fiction, and will test comprehension as well as vocabulary

• KS1 GAPS test: written grammar, punctuation, spelling




Achieving the new floor standard by securing requisite levels of reading, writing and mathematics at all levels of primary phase




Developing strategies to improve performance in English and mathematics: what does research tell us?• Good formative assessment procedures will be vital (record once/term?)• Teachers will have space to integrate teaching, learning and assessment• In ‘schools that beat the odds’ the CIERA School Change Project: there was:

Excellent record-keeping on every child in all subjects ‘Intolerance of stasis’ ‘Intense small-group instruction’ for the weakest (CIERA, 2002)

• So if levels make sense to you and your colleagues- use them, but with detailed level descriptors rather than simple “She’s a 3c”

• Work to make the children confident in self- and peer-assessment• Children blossom when they believe they’re improving (and vice versa….)




Ensuring all pupils have attained the necessary levels in literacy and numeracy to be secondary ready

• Not easy: the size of the goalposts will not be determined until after children have taken the new KS2 tests in 2016

• The size of the goalposts will then be adjusted to ensure that an appropriate number of schools do not meet the the ‘floor standard’

• One way of maximizing a school’s value-added score at KS2 will be to make sure that the KS1 scores from which the value-added score is calculated are as low as possible

Ensuring all pupils have attained the necessary levels in literacy and numeracy to be secondary ready

• Not easy: the size of the goalposts will not be determined until after children have taken the new KS2 tests in 2016

• The size of the goalposts will then be adjusted to ensure that an appropriate number of schools do not meet the the ‘floor standard’

• One way of maximizing a school’s value-added score at KS2 will be to make sure that the KS1 scores from which the value-added score is calculated are as low as possible

No extra time!!!!!




Embedding literacy and numeracy skills into all lessons across the primary school

• The good news: Most good teachers are skilled in this area already. However:

• The new challenge will be making use of technology to support in-school and out-of-school learning at primary level- and then linking this to assessment and record-keeping

• New cross-curricular approaches to problem-solving in maths, humanities and science, and group work for writing, using new technologies can bring greater engagement and increased learning

• Critical Internet Literacy will become a core subject by 2020

The take-home message:

• Testing does not raise standards: it’s good teaching that raises standards

• What we need to do is to ensure that teacher-led formative assessment and student-led self-assessment become central to that good teaching

• If the teaching is right, the children will cope with the assessment, which at KS2 is likely to have good construct validity, and will match the curriculum

Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy from Reception Onwards

Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy from Reception OnwardsColin Harrison University of Nottingham

Education

Reading Assessment- Moving the goalposts