Author: Tim Dracup
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. In April 2016 the Fair Education Alliance released its second annual report card. This post reviews progress against the five declared impact goals, as well as the recommendations for securing stronger progress in future. . What is the Fair Education Alliance? The Fair Education Alliance was launched by Teach First in June 2014. It…
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. . This post reviews fair access developments subsequent to publication of the HE green paper and preceding publication of the impending white paper. It asks whether some of the recommendations proffered by the Scottish Commission on Widening Access (COWA) should also be adopted in England. . Developments…
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. This short post anticipates the coverage of top-end differentiation in the imminent framework of core content for initial teacher training (ITT). . Background The Carter review of initial teacher training (ITT) (January 2015) dates from the last months of the Coalition Government. The first recommendation is that DfE should commission a sector body to…
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. This post describes how three Dracup brothers moved southwards from Great Horton in the 1850s, settling in Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Bedfordshire. The three in question were sons of Eli Dracup (1799-1837) – Ephraim (1828-1888), Jonathan (1832-1878) and Eli (1837-1928). Eli is my great-great-grandfather. . The brothers’ parents The previous episode in this genealogical series…
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. This brief post offers a preliminary assessment of provision for the most able in the 2016 schools white paper. . Background There was a little-noticed commitment in the Conservative Election Manifesto: ‘We will make sure that all students are pushed to achieve their potential and create more opportunities to stretch the most able.’ The statement…
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. This post explores tensions between the ‘excellence for all’ objective now underpinning national education policy and the proposed design of the national funding formula for schools. It is framed as an exploratory discussion document. If a convincing counter-argument emerges I am ready to adjust my views. . Setting the scene ‘Doing Differentiation Differently?’ mentioned…
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. This post traces the early history of Dracups resident in Great Horton, now part of Bradford in Yorkshire, England. It covers a period of just over a century, beginning around 1730 with the arrival of John Dracupp (1688-1767) and his young family and ending as great grandson Samuel Dracup (1793-1866) establishes himself as a…
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. . . . . . This post compares how we do differentiation with how it’s done elsewhere. It explores the tension within education policy between autonomy and pedagogical prescription through the ‘forensic analysis’ of recent ministerial speech content. It flags up the likelihood of further…
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. This post assesses the progress of English Russell Group universities in admitting students from areas with low levels of higher education participation. It reapplies a methodology used previously by the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (SMCPC) to measure the success of these 20 universities in recruiting young, full-time first…
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. This post: Reviews the most recent statistical evidence of attainment gaps between disadvantaged high attainers and their peers. Questions why pupil premium is having no impact on these excellence gaps and Proposes action to close the gaps by raising attainment, so improving the life chances of these learners. . Introduction I have…
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. This post is mainly about Policy Exchange’s plans for ‘super-selective schools’, as proposed on Total Politics and reprised in Schools Week . Digression It’s been a strange six months. Last July I officially retired the Gifted Phoenix Blog and the @GiftedPhoenix Twitter feed, leaving the former open access and converting the latter into a…
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. This post casts a critical eye over the proposals for widening participation and fair access in the Higher Education Green Paper. It succeeds an earlier post – ‘Can we expect a rocket boost for fair access?’ (October 2015) – that discussed what was known of the Government’s intentions prior to publication. . Publication BIS…
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. This post provides updated information about trends in Key Stage 2 Level 6 performance. . Background Two further datasets have been released since I published a summary of Provisional KS2 Level 6 results for 2015 (August 2015): 2015 static national transition matrices for KS1-2 reading, writing and maths were added to RAISEonline on 29…
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. I wanted to find out how many of our 163 grammar schools give priority to disadvantaged pupils in their admissions arrangements for academic year 2016/17, and by what means. This analysis was prompted by a comment made by Secretary of State Nicky Morgan during the Commons debate on her statement of 19 October 2015. The…
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. This is an exploratory discussion document. I wrote it to try to understand more clearly the current situation. I am open to persuasion and will take on board evidence-based amendments. . The transition from old to new The original policy design for levels-based assessment was simple and elegant. This helped ensure its longevity throughout…
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. Having spent several years bewailing the limited availability of national data on excellence gaps, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that RAISEOnline has just published transition matrices showing the progress made by disadvantaged learners from KS2 to KS4. It is regrettable that this data has been released only at the point when an entirely…
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. Today (20 October 2015) saw the publication of the latest DfE destinations data. It was contained in SFR40/2015: Provisional destinations of key stage 4 and key stage 5 students in state-funded institutions, 2013/14. I will not repeat again the detailed description of this data or the provisos attached. The essential information is set out…
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