Being on the SLT and the constant battle with data

Frustrating, frustrating, frustrating… dealing with numbers instead of children has become a daily task for every stakeholder in a school. The constant manipulation of numbers would make a spin doctor go dizzy or make a fat cat thin.  We are creating data for Ofsted inspectors to analyse but we all know the strengths and weaknesses in our schools without crunching digits. The Raiseonline document has become so complicated that confidence intervals of even one child (being disadvantaged, low, mid or high) is now more significant than ever.

Being in the position of being a leader in a one-form entry school with 58% boys, 52% FSM, 62% EMA and 21% SEND I have become rather skilled at producing data that presents our data in a good light. But… there is only so far this can go. We have a resource provision for ASC, something that all the staff in our school adore, but they are rarely capable of taking a Phonics, KS1, or KS2 SATs test and yes they all count towards our data.

This sentence makes me cross - each child in our school is worth 3.3%. A typical class is now: two kids with autism, the pupil that has just arrived in the country with no english, the boy who has severe behavioural issues, and the girl who is a very talented dancer. But give any of them a reading test that a 14 year old would find difficult and then your highest possible score without anything else going wrong is 83.5%. 83.5% is our 100%! Then add those six children who are massively borderline (who would be fine achieving the old school 4c) and then the story is 63.7%. Far too close to the threshold. A percentage score that would make any leader nervous.

Luckily, in schools we can always produce evidence which proves that our progress is outstanding. This is a day by day, month by month, year by year battle. These poor kids are going to interventions during the afternoon lessons, after school study groups, 1:1 sessions, Saturday schools and holiday schools. The curriculum for certain children has become so narrow. No wonder that wonderful teachers are leaving the profession in their hundreds and thousands and that some children feel the pressure of school or become completely disinterested in learning.

So ,lets take the best-case scenario 83.5% - even with my bad back, I would do cartwheels and a backflip if we achieved this. And then I realise that all our local schools have achieved in the high 90s. They effect of these results cannot be understated. A few of our WAGD children (yes we have a few) will look to move to these schools, if our message to the parents was not so strong and then they would be replaced by lovely children, whose attainment is frankly not comparable. The league tables are so destructive and obviously completely false in what they are reporting. Do they tell the whole story of a school? No. Prospective parents would not choose our school just on a number. We can remove certain children from our data such as the SEND children but why should we. For example, one of our autistic children learnt to control their behaviour in stressful situations such as lining up for lunch and sitting in assembly. The other has managed to form a relationship with a friend, the dancer led her troupe to perform skilfully in front of an audience of over 200 and the boy with no English is now speaking in sentences.  Huge achievements and amazing breakthroughs that are not assessed or are no longer seen as important.

In September, I was presented with a school profile, which ranked our school for attainment and progress in EYFS, KS1 and KS2. A week into the new school year and I am having a conversation with a very talented teacher and a great EYFS leader that for Average Point Score we were ranked 80^th out of 85 schools. Yes, a school from somewhere in the Borough has to be 80^th but how does that make our school community feel? The teacher and TA’s working six days a week, a couple of hours each evening and during the holidays. Not that anyone reading this would know but in the cohort of 30 in which this data was created – there were 4 Send children (two with EHCPs), 19 FSM children, 17 children with EAL and 5 boys with behavioural issues. The teacher and her team achieved amazing things with this cohort to be hit with 80^th . Highly unmotivating.  Next in the school year for many schools is pupil progress meetings where we target set for the next year. We ask teachers to squeeze every percent out of their classes because of local and national data, heaping pressure on teachers and TA’s and most importantly children.

I do believe that by the end of a pupil’s primary school that every child should be able to read, write and complete maths tasks. However, the curriculum has been squeezed because of data – the children do reading, writing and maths for a majority of the day. The long-term affect is we will produce good readers, able writers and good mathematicians, which I do agree is important. But what about history, geography, music, PE, RE, art, D&T, MFL, PSHE and the sciences? What many schools have done to fit these into a packed week is to teach them through English and Maths, but isn’t it a real shame for our children that this is the case. Real life experiences and research are highly underused. This is where the Early Years practice has got this completely correct – a child centred and initiated curriculum. Imagine that, tasks and projects that stimulate a child’s interest and curiosity. I applaud any practitioner that works in this manner. The thought would make the Secretary of Education itchy. Why can we not let kids jump in puddles, search for mini-beasts or have a teddy bears picnic. The truth is that kids write about them and not necessarily ‘do’ them. A sad state of affairs.

The lesson to learn with data is that is never tells the true story of what the reality actually is. As professionals, we will still battle with data on a daily basis in but in the heart of every teacher is the progress and needs of every individual pupil.