Date: 06/05/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

The link between literacy and success in qualifications is pretty clear. One of the sharpest examples of this is the reading age which is required to access GCSE exam papers. The exam papers are designed with a reading age of 15 years and 6 months, to match the age of the youngest pupils in Year 11 taking the exams that year. For any pupil whose reading age is less than their actual age, there is an instant problem as they may not fully understand questions and instructions in the exam paper. Inevitably, this significantly reduces their chances of getting good GCSE grades, which impacts on their options for further education and career aspirations.

This week, we’ve started work on developing a Trust Literacy Strategy for all of our schools. This is aimed to bring together lots of existing good work in areas such as reading and writing, as well as create new opportunities for our pupils to develop their skills in other areas. We are defining literacy as developing reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar and oracy (the ability to speak clearly, confidently and express yourself well). We believe that developing each of these areas across all age groups will massively improve our pupils’ life chances.

We aren’t starting from scratch here, and there is a lot of great support already in place across our schools. What we are looking to do is make it clearer for pupils and parents/carers what we will be doing at each stage from Early Years to GCSE in order to support our pupils. It’s also about making it clearer exactly what families can also do to support their child(ren) with this. One of the positives to come out of the pandemic is the much greater level of interaction and communication between schools and parents and we aim to build upon this.

Developing literacy isn’t just about improving educational opportunities; the positive impacts run much deeper than that. Children who enjoy reading are three times more likely to have good mental wellbeing than those who don’t enjoy reading. Having good oracy skills improves self-confidence and self-esteem, while reducing anxiety and helping to manage disagreements with others more effectively (helping parents and school staff alike!).

I hope that you think that our plans for a more strategic approach to further improve literacy will be a positive development for our schools and I would love to hear your views on this. If you would like to provide feedback on this proposed strategy, please email marketing@ncea.org.uk.

Date: 22/04/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

I can’t imagine many people would argue that having good subject knowledge isn’t important, or that achieving the best possible qualifications in English and Maths aren’t essential for success after school. However, I would argue that the current system of examinations and the expectations for school performance tables and inspections is very narrow in its focus, leading to vocational qualifications often being seen as the poor relations to the ‘academic’ ones.

There is too much emphasis on a small range of subjects favoured by the government and too much resting on ‘all or nothing’ final exams, which require pupils to recall a huge amount of subject knowledge. It feels like we are stuck with a model from 19th Century schools in the 21st Century. What is missing are more opportunities for practical learning and assessment throughout a course, not just at the end. Many universities get this and use this as the assessment model for degrees. I think that the current systems forced upon schools means we are missing an opportunity. We need change and that can only come if enough of us agree and make our voices heard.

Firstly we need to return to a system where much more of the assessment for the final grade happens throughout a course. An exam can still take place at the end of the course but shorter tests, project work and practical assessments over a two year period would take away a lot of the stress for pupils, who are often faced with two exams per day for a number of weeks at the end of Year 11. Changing from this would also give pupils the chance to build up a portfolio of evidence about their success in a subject.

Secondly, we need a system that gives much more flexibility with the curriculum and creates a parity of esteem for vocational subjects. This would mean that pupils would have much more choice in their options and schools wouldn’t be punished in the performance tables for allowing more pupils to take vocational courses, whether these are GCSEs or an alternative such as BTECs. Having a common or at least more easily comparable grading system would also help here.

Finally, there needs to be reform to English and Maths qualifications, with a greater focus on an initial functional qualification in each, which can then be built upon with further qualifications. This would allow pupils to master and demonstrate their competence in communications and numeracy before moving on.

I once had a group of pupils who were going to be forced to take GCSE Geography because of the school’s curriculum model. They were a challenging group, so I spent some time talking to the pupils and their parents about what they really wanted to learn about; it turned out that most had an interest in careers in leisure. We agreed to offer these pupils the option of a vocational GCSE in Leisure and Tourism instead. I then worked with a range of employers such as EasyJet, Marriott Hotels, local leisure centres and English Heritage to provide a course full of practical experiences.

The class worked incredibly hard for the two years of the course. As two thirds of the assessment was through portfolios, they each built up files of evidence of their practical skills and knowledge. Work experience and practical sessions were a key part of this. They organised their own events to show skills such as managing a budget, event planning, marketing and customer service. Many of my colleagues couldn’t believe that a group of pupils, most of whom had previously been in a lot of trouble at school, could take on so much responsibility. The answer was to give them an option which they enjoyed, focused on their practical skills and helped them towards their career aspirations.

All of that group passed their GCSE with at least C grades, for many of them, this was the best grade achieved in any subject. Almost all of them went on to work, apprenticeships or further study related to leisure and tourism, including working in five-star hotel and for airlines. The success of these pupils convinced me that we can get the best out of all of our pupils if we can offer them an appropriate curriculum and assessment system which recognises a wider range of skills and applied knowledge rather than largely testing the recall of knowledge.

Getting this to replace our current system will only happen if enough people are willing to come together and support the case for change. This brings us back to the original question; what do we want for our children from our education system? If football supporters can bring down the proposed European Super League in 48 hours then why can’t we raise our voices to challenge the current system?

Date: 22/04/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

This week we’ve seen the power of those who are passionate about something (in this case football) coming together to defeat a change (the proposed European Super League) which they felt would harm the thing they love. It’s shown that acting together with a united voice can actually lead to a significant change for the better. This has made me think about the positive changes we could achieve in education if we can unite people around something that we all want to achieve.

There are many things we could look to change, but one of my priorities would be to create an education system which places equal value on the full range of qualifications and subjects, not just a small group which causes schools to narrow their curriculum. In particular, it would be fantastic to raise the status and availability of vocational subjects.

Setting out a favoured range of subjects and judging secondary schools on how pupils perform places a straightjacket around the curriculum which schools can offer. Although this is typically a secondary school measure, it also shapes the curriculum in primary schools, as primary OFSTED inspections now focus very much on the subjects which are part of this closely assessed framework, known as the “English Baccalaureate” or “EBacc”, such as Geography, History and Science.

Schools are no different to any other organisation; if something is going to be measured and used to judge your effectiveness then it will become a major focus and driver of your work. As there are no vocational subjects included in the EBacc framework, then it inevitably sends a message to schools not to focus as much time and energy on these as the ‘academic’ subjects. This is a great shame as it unintentionally downplays the importance of vocational qualifications, meaning that pupils and schools don’t always have their achievements recognised and many pupils who would benefit from a more vocational curriculum don’t have access to one in-school, as schools are forced to focus on the EBacc subjects instead.

I believe that if school leaders were better at explaining how some Government policy decisions force schools to follow a narrow curriculum, which they don’t feel meets the needs of their pupils as effectively as it could, then parents would be asking a lot more questions about these policies.

A report issued this week suggests that 48% of parents would prefer their child to get a vocational qualification over going to university or work when they leave school. This shows that there is a strong demand for a greater recognition of vocational qualifications and the creation of an equal playing field with ‘academic’ qualifications. This is something that is a key part of other successful education systems, such as in Germany.

This support for vocational qualifications encourages me to think that many people would welcome a radical review and overhaul of our school curriculum. This week’s astonishing overturn of the European Super League proposal by collective action tells me that if we can get enough people to agree that change is necessary, then we can make it happen. The challenge here is convincing enough people that we can’t continue with the current damaged system. Perhaps a reset after the impact of Covid could be this opportunity?

To be continued in next week’s edition of Lighthouse…

Date: 25/03/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

We’ve heard a great deal in the past few months about the need for all pupils to ‘catch-up’ with their learning. This is something that needs a great deal more thought than some people think.

Firstly, thanks to the amazing efforts of pupils and their families, and the high quality of remote learning, there are some pupils who have done exceptionally well and are more or less where they should be. Some pupils have also made huge progress in their use and application of ICT, which would not have happened without remote learning.

As the lockdown was national, all pupils across the country have had to get used to a different way of learning. Remote learning is never going to replace face-to-face teaching in classrooms, but the notion that entire year groups of pupils have ‘lost’ entire months of learning is nonsense and it is a negative narrative that helps no one. Some pupils have struggled more than others and this is where the knowledge of the pupils from school staff and their skills in supporting them will be vital over the next year or two.

Schools are all too often judged only on exam and test results. I don’t think that anyone would argue that results aren’t important, but if that is the sole focus of a school, then I think that is letting down pupils, families and communities. Much of what we learn in school isn’t just about the ability to recall information and apply it in tests. Just as important are the social skills and learning to get along with others, and it is this that pupils need to catch up with just as much as the academic side of things.

It has been wonderful to have our schools full again over the last three weeks. It would be very tempting to set a large amount of homework over Easter to keep up the momentum from the return on 8th March. However, my message to our pupils is that over the Easter break, they should focus on their wellbeing rather than worry about how quickly they are catching up with their academic work.

Easter is always a time when many of us think about the hope that is offered to us in its message. This year, it will also fall just after another partial relaxation of the lockdown rules. This will mean that we can meet another family, or 5 people in the rule of six, outdoors and it also means the restart of outdoor sports. As this also coincides with increasing daylight and (hopefully!) warmer weather, it is a great chance to get outdoors, meet with people we’ve missed and get back to doing some of the things we enjoy.

I think that this is the type of catch up we should be prioritising. Schools across the country have found that the second national lockdown has had more of an impact on pupil wellbeing than the first one did. Much of this is probably linked to the fatigue of enduring a full year of restrictions, but also because the colder weather and longer nights has meant fewer chances to spend time outside. So, within the rules, I think that spending time outdoors, playing sports and meeting family and friends should be what we focus on during the holiday.

I wish all of our pupils, parents, carers and staff a very Happy Easter!

Date: 18/03/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

Over the last year, we’ve seen some huge U-turns by the Department for Education, such as schools “must stay open”, reversed after one day in January and “exams must go ahead”, changing to “all exams are cancelled”. I certainly don’t envy the government in having to make some very difficult decisions, after all, the last year has brought each of us challenges we could not have imagined. However, sometimes decisions are made which seem to completely ignore the views of those who are then directly impacted by that decision.

I never publicly take a party political view, as I don’t think that this is appropriate for school leaders, and we also need to work with everyone from across the political spectrum. What I have no problem with, however, is calling out injustice and decisions which directly impact on the life chances of the young people we have the privilege of educating.

The Pupil Premium is widely regarded as one of the best education initiatives introduced in the last decade. It gives schools additional funding to improve the attainment of pupils who are eligible for free school meals, either currently or who have been at any point in the previous five years. This means that for each eligible pupil, schools receive an additional £1,345 for primary pupils and £955 for secondary pupils. The money is spent on a range of strategies aimed at removing barriers to education and improving outcomes, such as funding additional teaching assistants, speech and language support and reading intervention programmes.

This funding has become vital to most schools, but the amount that schools receive is under threat because of a change in how the Department for Education allocates Pupil Premium funding.

Previously, funding has been based on the number of pupils eligible in January each year. However from April, this will be based on pupil numbers from the previous October.

This might seem like a minor change, but there has been a large increase in pupils who are eligible for free school meals in the last few months, due to the impact of the pandemic on jobs. This could result in a considerable loss of Pupil Premium funding for schools, which has been estimated at £250 million nationally. It means that a pupil who became eligible for free school meals on 1st November 2020 would not attract the Pupil Premium funding until April 2022.

Unfortunately this change could wipe out the impact of the additional funding given to schools for Covid recovery, making it feel like school funding is being given by one hand and taken away by another. Schools, Trusts and local authorities have asked the Department for Education to review this decision, as it will impact directly on the support available for disadvantaged pupils.

Let’s hope that there is a rethink from the Department for Education and they perform another U-turn to make sure that schools don’t lose vital funding to help disadvantaged pupils at such a crucial time.

Date: 11/03/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEA Trust.

I’m delighted that all of our schools are fully open again. After the challenges of ‘homeschooling’, I’m sure that many parents share this sentiment! Despite some of the gloomy news stories that have being doing the rounds in the media, our pupils have returned with smiles and are very happy to be back in school. As I’ve said before, children are very resilient, they are positive about being back and are just getting on with their school work and activities.

Being fully reopen means that we can now focus on creating a bright future for our pupils. This will be through a carefully planned curriculum, which allows pupils to consolidate work covered in home learning, but that also introduces new content to make the curriculum interesting and exciting. The return also means that we can start to work on some longer term changes intended to further improve the education provided by NCEAT schools.

This week we launched a public consultation on a plan to change Bishop’s from one huge primary school into five separate primary schools – one at each of the existing campuses. The key reason for making this change is we believe that it will bring each school closer to its local community, while retaining all of the strong partnership work. There would also be a very significant funding increase through making this change, which would allow more investment in IT, books and other resources.

The consultation is the first part of a process set out by the Department for Education (DfE) for schools who wish to make a significant change. If the consultation shows parental support for the change, then we then will prepare a business case to submit to DfE. If you would like to know more about the consultation, click here.

We will also soon start an exciting programme to bring Mandarin and Chinese culture lessons to pupils in all of our NCEAT schools. We will be working with the Swire Chinese Language Centre in Newcastle to deliver lessons to pupils in every school. I hope that this will be the first step towards eventually offering GCSE Mandarin at Duke’s.
I want NCEAT to have the highest aspirations for our pupils and to give them great opportunities for learning and enrichment. Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world, yet only a very small number of pupils in England have the chance to learn it. China is the world’s second largest economy and as Britain looks to increase its trade with China, knowledge of Mandarin could give our pupils a huge advantage for future employment.

Swire Chinese Language Foundation will very generously provide resources and fund the teaching initially; we will have four days of teaching time across our schools for the rest of the school year. All of our pupils will have the opportunity to learn about Chinese culture and participate in some fun, educational activities such as learning to write their name in Chinese characters and learning some Mandarin words and phrases. If this is successful we will expand the programme in following years, with the ultimate aim of some pupils taking GCSE and having the opportunity to visit China as part of their course. I’m delighted that we can bring a learning experience to our pupils that previously has only been available in a handful of schools.

While the immediate future for all of us might be uncertain as we wait to see how well the government’s roadmap out of lockdown works, one thing for sure is that at NCEAT, we’re taking nothing for granted and we’re now firmly looking forward.

Date: 04/03/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

This is a question that I’m sure we’ve all heard, asked and answered many times. Quite often the answer is “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure”. I think these are both absolutely fine as responses, because many pupils genuinely don’t have an immediate career in mind when they are at school, or frequently jump from one idea to another. Sometimes it’s easier to say what you definitely don’t want to do. Personally, I told my school careers advisor I definitely didn’t want to be a teacher – I didn’t change my mind on that until much later!

I think the most important role that schools and families can play in careers advice is to make children aware that there are huge range of options available for different careers. As they get older, this extends to helping them understand the skills, aptitudes and qualifications that are needed for different careers options and how these match to their interests and aspirations.

This week is National Careers Week and schools have been raising awareness of the range of careers options available. Over the last few years, there have been huge improvements in careers guidance and information in England’s secondary schools and now increasingly in primary schools. The Gatsby National Good Career Guidance Benchmarks have supported this improvement. Duke’s Secondary School was one of the pilot schools for this and is also a Lead School in the Ambition Careers Hub supported by the North East Local Enterprise Hub.

In all of our schools, there is a focus on engagement with local businesses to support careers development and to help raise awareness amongst our pupils (and their families) of the range of employment opportunities available now and in the future. We are always looking to develop this and welcome any offers of support from local business. Although this year’s National Careers Week has been virtual, we hope that we will get back to face-to-face events, such as our ‘World of Work Week’, later in the year.

Schools and Trusts are now much more proactive in seeking to make links with businesses. Last week I had a meeting with representatives of British Volt, who are planning to build a huge lithium battery factory in Blyth, to make links that I hope will create opportunities for pupils in our schools. Understanding the requirements of local employers is critical for schools to plan their curriculum, particularly for GCSE and Sixth Form. However it is also about ensuring that the ‘soft skills’ needed by employers such as teamwork, resilience and good communication are developed at every stage of a pupil’s education.

The Government is planning some very significant changes to post-16 education over the next few years, which will have a huge impact on progression to employment. Basically, they intend there to be three main pathways, the traditional A level route leading to university, apprenticeships and finally the new T level qualifications which are being piloted at the moment. The Government would like T levels to replace most of the existing vocational qualifications in Sixth Form, such as BTECs. However T levels are very different: they are the equivalent of 3 A levels, 20% of the time is spent on a placement in industry and the courses are very specific to particular careers. This may require pupils to make a much earlier decision about career aspiration than at present. While ensuring that pupils with a clear career aspiration get a quality vocational experience and qualification is good, this will not suit others who don’t want to make this decision at age 16.

Such a major change will require a new approach and potentially much more collaboration between schools, colleges and employers to get this right. Whether the change is ever fully implemented (in 30 years in teaching I’ve seen a number of similar plans fall apart) a more collaborative approach between education and employers can only be a good thing and will further improve the quality of careers education available for our young people.

Date: 25/02/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

Over the last few months, there have been more newspaper headlines about schools than I can even remember. However this week must have broken the record, with daily headlines.

The great news is that our pupils can finally return to school from March 8th and we can’t wait to have them back. We will be fully open in Bishop’s, Castle and Warkworth from Monday 8th. However, the headline from the Prime Minister’s speech of “all schools back on the 8th” was not entirely accurate, as given the requirement for testing, it is almost impossible for any secondary school to be fully open straight away.

I understand that when politicians make a pledge about a particular date, they will be attacked in the press and probably by some of their supporters if they fail to make it. To avoid the Government being seen not to achieve the target of having all schools back on 8th March, the problem has been passed on to the schools themselves. The Government have required all secondary schools to Covid test pupils before they are allowed back into school, one of three Covid tests which secondary schools must complete on all pupils before Easter.

This is a very significant logistical problem even for an average sized secondary school, such as Duke’s, to perform on almost 1000 pupils, as well as the twice weekly tests for around 150 staff. I can only imagine the discussions taking place in some of the larger secondary schools around the country, which have 2000 or more pupils to test. Each individual test takes a minimum of 4 minutes per pupil…

However, although this is yet another “over to you…” problem given to schools to deal with, we are putting together a plan to get initial testing completed as quickly as possible to get pupils back into lessons as soon as possible.

The other big announcements have been about extra ‘catch up funding’ for summer schools, etc., which is very welcome, and at last having some certainty about exams. We will share our plans for the catch up funding in the next few weeks. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that our ‘catch up’ plans are as much about making up for missed extracurricular and social experiences as they are about academic catch up. The vast majority of our pupils have engaged with online learning very well. Of course they will have some gaps to be addressed but they have also missed out some crucial opportunities to take part in sports, arts, music, visits, etc. so our ‘catch up’ strategy will also be focusing on this.

It is good news that we have a clearer idea on how GCSE, A level and BTEC grades will be awarded. In many ways, it is similar to the Centre Assessed Grades used in 2020, but without the link to a school’s previous results. In many respects, OFQUAL and DfE have come up with the ‘least worst’ solution, where schools will determine grades using a combination of mock exams, coursework and essays. There will also be optional assessments set by exam boards for all subjects, but they don’t need to be taken in exam conditions. Each school will have until June 18th to submit grades, which have to be agreed by at least two teachers and senior leaders before being signed off by the Principal.

Schools will have their internal quality assurance processes signed off by exam boards prior to grade submission. In June and July, exam boards will randomly pick schools to sample the evidence they used. Results days have also been moved to August 10th for A-levels and August 12th for GCSE. An infographic has been included below to summarise the process.

For all pupils in Years 11 and 13, the next few weeks in school provide a fantastic opportunity to improve grades. Unlike last year when grades were determined by before the March lockdown, any assessments that pupils complete over the next few weeks gives them the chance of improving their grade. The message has to be that there will almost certainly never be another opportunity like this, where grades won’t be based on all or nothing exams nor have predetermined proportions. The final grades for each of our Year 11 and 13 pupils are very much in their own hands and those who work hard and put their best efforts in over the next three months will get the grades they deserve.

Date: 11/02/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

During the last week, we’ve had plenty of headlines about the need for our children to ‘catch up’ with their ‘lost education’. It’s very easy for politicians to get a headline with what is seen as an easy solution, such as longer school days or shorter holidays. Suggestions like these can be seen as common sense and a good remedy to the problems created by the partial closure of schools during the pandemic.

However, if I’ve learned one thing in my time as a school leader, it is that the biggest waste of time and resources is delivering a solution without a proper understanding of what the actual problem is. In business, this might be described as a ‘root cause analysis’.

It’s very easy for a government to impose a national strategy for improving education or healthcare, but all too often this is based on a particular political or populist view on what is seen as the obvious solution to a problem. Unfortunately many such ‘solutions’ are based on a flawed understanding of what the problem actually is, nor do they consider the unintended impacts of their ‘solution’.

I’ve said in previous blogs that while I am naturally concerned about the impact of the pandemic on our children, I am much more hopeful than many politicians that this can be overcome. This is largely because I know that children are much more resilient than they are often given credit for and also because I know that many of our pupils have worked very hard during lockdown and haven’t spent a year with no learning. Teachers are also very skilled in identifying gaps in learning and can help our pupils bridge the gaps, so that they get to where they need to be.

In my humble opinion, what politicians need to focus on firstly is giving schools the additional resources, such as funding for more teachers, needed to help the pupils who have found it most difficult to engage with remote learning. This would allow schools to increase the strategies we know work best with their own pupils, such as one-to-one or small group tutoring. This will help schools tackle the biggest impact of the pandemic, which is the uneven impact on learning between pupils.

Secondly, the government needs to hold an urgent review of the way that pupils are assessed for exam grades. The last year has demonstrated that placing all of the emphasis on a set of exams at the end of a course is too open to disruption, which is a disaster when there is no ‘plan B’. If effective teacher assessment systems are put in place, coursework reintroduced and more frequent chances to take shorter exams during the course are brought in, there would be many benefits. Firstly it would avoid the ‘all eggs in one basket’ situation we currently have, but more importantly it would benefit the mental health of our pupils by ending the intense weeks of stress with two or more exams per day.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there is a need to recognise that it isn’t just English and Maths that our pupils need to ‘catch up’ with. Of course these are important, but so are the soft skills that pupils learn through attending school: teamwork, listening to other points of view, self-discipline, the chance to discuss their ideas with their classmates, learning new skills etc. This can’t be underestimated. Being introduced to athletics at school improved my wellbeing and gave me opportunities I would almost certainly never would have had otherwise. We must not underestimate the social aspects of learning and recognise that this isn’t just through lessons but also the extracurricular and enrichment activities on offer.

Those who propose extending the school day and term time need to recognise that ‘catching up’ isn’t just about more lessons, it’s also about the social learning opportunities that pupils have missed during lockdown. They also need to remember that schools already offer a great deal outside of normal school hours, so a key part of any ‘catch up’ solution has been funding to invest in more sports, drama, arts, music, and etc. rather than just more lessons.

Let’s hope that our Government takes the time to fully understand the problem before deciding on the solution to ‘catch up’.