{"id":193276,"date":"2023-11-10T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/?p=193276"},"modified":"2023-11-10T09:01:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T09:01:43","slug":"has-nick-gibb-won-the-education-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/has-nick-gibb-won-the-education-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Nick Gibb won the education battle?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Schools with traditional education methods dominated the top of last month\u2019s league tables, prompting a piece in The Times<\/em> declaring that \u201cstricter schools get better results\u201d. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So has Nick Gibb, a staunch proponent of such approaches, won the education war? Schools Week <\/em>investigates<\/strong>…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAcademisation and free schools work,\u201d wrote Mark Lehain last month, the former special adviser who soon after returned to the fold with the education secretary. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore rigorous curriculums and exams work. Explicit approaches to behaviour and teaching work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comment echoed many from proponents of traditional approaches after the publication of last year\u2019s progress 8 league tables, where some of the highest-flyers were schools with strong traditionalist values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So does it stack up?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Schools Week<\/em> has established that at least 10 of the top 20 schools are \u201ctraditional\u201d, although it could be higher as it is essentially a subjective judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some of the best-performing schools are clearly in this category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michaela Community School in west London topped the progress 8 tables with a score of 2.37 (which means pupils achieve more than two grades better per subject than pupils with similar prior attainment at the end of primary school).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by Katharine Birbalsingh, often labelled \u201cBritain’s strictest headteacher\u201d, the school is renowned for its silent corridors, no SEND labels and detentions for failing to have a pen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019re doing the best we can for children\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mercia School in Sheffield \u2013 dubbed by some as the \u201cMichaela of the north\u201d \u2013 came third with a progress score of 2.22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school day runs until 5pm every day except Friday, when pupils finish at 3.45pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mark
Mark Lehain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dean Webster, its head, describes its approach as \u201cwarm-strict\u201d, but added there was often a \u201cstigma\u201d around traditional schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately all we are ever doing is doing the best by children and we are achieving that. It changes lives and the grades that they get is the passport for the next phase of their life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lehain, in a blog last month for the online newspaper CapX, said the results were \u201cyet more vindication\u201d of the Conservative\u2019s education reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said \u201cmany of the schools who have explicitly and publicly rejected these traditional approaches in favour of progressive ones are doing far worse than average\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some progressive schools get low scores<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Again, identifying a list is difficult. But one of the flagship progressive schools is School 21, a free school in east London co-founded by Peter Hyman, Keir Starmer\u2019s current senior adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School 21, downgraded from \u2018outstanding\u2019 to \u2018requires improvement\u2019 earlier this year, had a progress score of -0.32, which is classed as \u201caverage\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school did not comment. But its website states it \u201coperates with the conviction that schools need to ensure a focus on head (academic success), heart (character and well-being) and hand (generating ideas, problem-solving, making a difference)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two Doncaster secondary schools at XP School Trust, also well-known for its progressive approach, had \u201cwell below average\u201d scores of -0.64 at XP East and -0.58 at XP School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its website states the trust \u201cbelieves that our children deserve a three-dimensional education focused on academic performance, character growth and beautiful work\u201d. The trust declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progress scores favour certain cohorts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But there is a big caveat: schools with certain pupil cohorts tend to do better in progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jo
Jo Hutchinson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jo Hutchinson, the director for SEND at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said these \u201climitations\u201d meant results varied \u201cconsiderably by a range of factors that are outside the school\u2019s control\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, the average score for pupils with English as an additional language was 0.51, compared with -0.12 for non-EAL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of the top 50 progress 8 schools, 36 had above-average levels of EAL pupils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michaela and Tauheedul Islam Girls\u2019 High School in Blackburn, the two highest-performing progress schools in the country, had just shy of 70 per cent of EAL youngsters. The national average is 18.1 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith schools a factor<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

FFT Datalab said some pupils would have recently arrived in the country when they took their SATs in year 6, so their results \u201cmay not have been a fair reflection of their attainment\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you exclude these pupils, the differences are actually down to ethnicity. For instance, there is a wide progress gap between black Caribbean EAL and non-EAL pupils, while there is to no gap for Chinese students in both groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith schools were also a factor, Hutchinson said. The EPI researchers found in 2016 that faith schools had more pupils achieving five A*s to C than non-faith schools. The same applies to progress 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results seem to back this up. Faith schools make up 34 of the top 50 progress 8 schools, despite accounting for just one in five secondary schools nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, just three of the top 10 schools are non-faith based. That includes Mercia. \u201cYou could argue \u2026 that if you are a family that has faith then the values of schools like ours, that are traditional, fit with those family values and the offer is attractive,\u201d said Webster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top schools have fewer SEND pupils<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

EPI researchers put the difference down to faith schools tending to have fewer disadvantaged children and pupils with SEND.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditional schools also face this criticism. Their strict approaches to behaviour are sometimes not inclusive for children with additional needs and can result in them moving to other schools, critics say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleven of the top 50 progress schools are grammars, which have far fewer disadvantaged pupils than average. But even excluding these, 24 of the remaining 39 schools have below average numbers of poorer children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michaela is one of the few that has more (31.1 per cent across the school compared to a 27.1 per cent England average).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Michaela
Michaela School<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But Dave Thomson, chief statistician at FFT Datalab, said progress 8 scores in some schools were \u201cso high that even if you take into account that they are girls\u2019 schools or that some groups of pupils, such as EAL pupils, perform slightly better, the differences are so great it\u2019s not just down to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt could be down to teaching and learning. But it could also be down to other external factors such as parental support and tutoring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calls for \u2018informed accountability\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Rebecca
Rebecca Boomer-Clark<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, researchers at the University of Bristol created an<\/a> \u201cadjusted\u201d progress 8 to re-weight a pupil\u2019s score according to factors such as their ethnicity, free school eligibility and gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their alternate performance tables, published by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, 41 per cent of schools deemed to be underperforming or \u201cwell below average\u201d moved out of that category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researcher professor George Leckie said they would re-run the measure next year. He expected a \u201cgreater reordering of schools now than pre-pandemic, because schools in harsher circumstances have fallen further behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that the quality of teaching has worsened, it’s the multiple challenges and struggles of the student body. There\u2019s a greater need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becks Boomer-Clark, the chief executive of the Academies Enterprise Trust, asked \u201chow to overlay\u201d factors such as SEND, disadvantage and location on top of progress 8 to get a \u201cmore nuanced and accurate understanding of the added value that a school is providing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calls for a ‘balanced scorecard’<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jonny Uttley, the chief executive officer at The Education Alliance, said a single measure allows people to \u201cobsess about it\u201d and \u201ctry and score political points\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said a \u201cbalanced scorecard\u201d, which included contextual data alongside progress 8, would be more suitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jonny
Jonny Uttley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rob Tarn, the chief executive at the Northern Education Trust, cautioned contextualising could lead to \u201clower expectations in more vulnerable schools\u201d. But he supported the idea of a dashboard of various measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we need is a more grown-up, broader view of school performance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour did not respond to comment on whether it would add more context into progress 8. But the party has announced plans to hold schools to account for performance in at least one creative or vocational subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DfE said there were \u201cno current plans\u201d to include a new contextual value-added measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

progress 8 was designed to \u201cencourage schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum, with a strong focus on an academic core\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The schools minister backs traditional teaching methods. But do they actually improve results? Schools Week investigates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311127,"featured_media":188519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28,239],"post-theme":[2398],"class_list":["post-193276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dfe","tag-education-policy","post-theme-schools"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t