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’.

Date: 28/01/21

By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

I’m sure that all of us have struggled with the uncertainty of when we will begin to move out of lockdown. With the impact of the pandemic worse now than during the first lockdown, I don’t think that anyone will be too surprised that schools will not fully reopen after February half-term. Even the new target date for reopening of 8th March is conditional on vaccination targets being met and hospital cases reducing. However it does give us the hope that we can at least extend opening then and take the first steps towards having all of our pupils back in school.

Although we will need to wait until February 22nd for the government to confirm their plans, rest assured that our schools are already preparing for a smooth return to school for our pupils and supporting them with catching up. This won’t be an overnight thing, but the curriculum will be carefully planned to balance consolidation of work set during lockdown along with introducing new content.

Catching up to where pupils would be if schools had remained open as normal may seem daunting, but it can be done. During my career, I’ve had the privilege of teaching a number of pupils who have missed very significant periods of school, which could have made a huge impact on their results. In some cases this was for severe and life threatening illnesses, for others it was arriving in the country as a refugee or asylum seeker. For some pupils this meant missing school entirely for over a year, as well as coping with the trauma of war and having to quickly learn or improve their English. Not only did these pupils catch up, many achieved even better results than they had hoped for.

This experience taught me that it is possible to rapidly catch up with missing work and get to where you want to be with determination, commitment and focus. The support and encouragement of family also makes a huge difference to the ability of children to make rapid progress. One of the few positives of Covid-19 and ‘home school’ is the great engagement and support from our families and the way they have worked with our schools to support their child’s learning.

I very much hope that the return planned for March 8th will be for all of our pupils in each school, but it is possible that it may be a phased return. If we look at how this was managed at the end of the last lockdown, the government priorities were Key Stage 1 and Year 6. With the uncertainty around how exam grades will be awarded this year, I would image that Years 11 and 13 will be prioritised at the end of this lockdown. Schools are in a much more difficult position than last year for teacher assessment, as last year’s exam groups had completed most of their courses and we had lots of assessment data, such as mock exam results.

The present Year 11 and 13 pupil have missed so much more time in school, covered less content and have experienced far fewer assessments. The current proposals for awarding grades include the use of some nationally agreed ‘mini-exams’ so it is vital that we get our pupils back in school as quickly as possible so that they are properly prepared for any assessments.

For all of our pupils, no one underestimates the impact that the pandemic could have on their education and their future prospects, but it is in all of our hands to ensure that this isn’t the same as the impact that it will have. This goes back to having the determination, commitment and focus I mentioned earlier. In a month which has seen a change of President in the USA, it’s worth remembering the words of one of the greatest Presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt: “If we attack our problems with determination, we shall succeed.”

Date: 21/01/21

By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

In the week with ‘Blue Monday’, supposedly the most depressing day of the year, it would be easy to write another gloomy article this week. However, instead of writing about more frustrating U-turns by the Department for Education, I’m going to match the theme of this week’s edition by writing something positive instead.

Firstly, despite all of the challenges posed by online learning, it has been great to see some of the fantastic work being produced by pupils across our schools and campuses. For example, the work produced by pupils at Grace Darling Juniors and Josephine Butler for Martin Luther King Day on the theme of ‘I have a dream’. I also enjoyed some amazing art work by Duke’s pupils and seeing pupils get involved in the NCEAT Weekly Wellbeing Challenge, particularly some of the challenges undertaken by pupils from Castle School.

I’ve been impressed by the work of some of the pupils who are still attending school. The Year 5 and 6 pupils at James Knott looked as if they were having great fun making pizzas and I’m sure that they enjoyed eating the finished product afterwards!

I’m also cheered by the progress on the construction of the new modular early years, nursery and reception building at NCEA Warkworth C of E Primary School. This is due to be completed by Easter, creating more spaces for nursery and two year olds, with both 15 and 30-hour care packages. We are also looking at whether it is possible for us to expand our provision at James Knott to offer two year old provision, as this is the only campus which is currently without this provision.

As I mentioned last week, the Secretary of State for Education encouraged parents who are unhappy with a school’s remote learning to complain to OFSTED, if they felt that the school hadn’t resolved their complaint. It has been a big morale boost for school staff across England to find out that instead, OFSTED has been inundated with emails from parents and carers praising their school for the quality of remote education. OFSTED has now received 13,000 emails praising schools since Gavin Williamson urged parents to flag remote education concerns, but only around 260 complaints.

In recent weeks, I’ve expressed my frustration with the Department for Education (DfE) at times. However, this has never been my default position and I will also give praise where it is due. This week DfE have published for consultation their plans to reform vocational education and training for post-16 students. This document definitely seems to be a step in the right direction, with recognition that the 50% who don’t go on to university need access to better funding for training and qualifications. There is also a promise that employers will have a much greater influence on vocational qualifications, with a strong link to the needs of the local jobs market.
While there is a lot of the detail to be worked out, this does seem like a positive set of proposals. Let’s hope what will be fully in place by 2030 offers new and exciting opportunities for our pupils who are currently in early years and Key Stage 1.

Date: 14/07/21

By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT

There is no doubt that switching to remote learning brings challenges for all of us. For pupils, it is engaging with a new style of learning in a different environment. For parents and carers, it may be about balancing working from home with the demands of home learning and trying to support your child with their work. For teachers, it is delivering lessons in a different way to normal and trying to find new ways of giving effective feedback to pupils to help them learn.

For all of us, we have no choice but to make it work as effectively as possible. The consequences of not doing so are unthinkable. Our pupils have missed so much school already and there is no guarantee of a return by February half term, so we have to maximise the opportunities that remote learning can bring.

This week OFSTED published a report on remote learning, based on looking at what schools have done since last March. What was very clear from the report is that there is no approach better than another when it comes to remote teaching and learning, with recorded lessons being just as effective as live lessons for example and clear support for using books and worksheets as well as online learning. What matters most is that we try to keep the content of the remote learning as close as possible to what our pupils would be completing in their classrooms.

All of our schools have slightly different approaches to how remote learning is delivered, based on the age of their pupils and the facilities available for pupils to work at home. However all of them are following the same principle of trying to deliver as much of our normal curriculum as possible at home.

There is no doubt that ‘home school’ can be really difficult for parents and carers, and we are really grateful for all of the effort that has gone into supporting our pupils with their remote learning. For those of you who aren’t sure about how best you can support your child, the key is encouraging them to engage as much as possible with the work being set by their teachers. I understand why some pupils find it difficult to engage with a new way of learning, perhaps feeling overwhelmed at times, and some pupils will also be struggling with missing seeing their friends. However it is absolutely vital to their long term chances of success that they engage with remote learning.

This is particularly important for those in the GCSE, BTEC and A level exam year groups. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Government’s handling of education since March was the failure to create a contingency plan for this year’s exams. Once again our pupils are left with great uncertainty over how their exam results will be calculated. We are promised that a plan for consultation will be published by the end of the week, so hopefully I will be able to explain more about this in the next edition of LIGHThouse.

I understand the anxiety of pupils and their families about how grades will be awarded, and as a parent of a Year 10 pupil myself, I know that it is not just Years 11 and 13 pupils who are worried about the impact of lockdown on the chances of success in exams in 2021 and beyond. What we do know is that the 2021 grades will be centre assessed, as they were in 2020. The best advice we can give our pupils is not to worry, to keep working as hard as they can and to complete as many assessment tasks as they can which their teacher can use as evidence that they are capable of achieving a particular grade. We will provide extra support and materials for this once we have details of how centre assessed grades will be calculated.

Remote learning may not be the ideal form of learning, but for pupils who fully engage with it and try their best, it will make a huge difference to their chances of success when we can all get back to school again. In the words of Zig Ziglar “If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”