Thread by @TomRees_77

1.***Primary Assessment Thread***

After lots of chat and announcements about SATs, I thought I'd share an alternative proposal.

Firstly, I think it's great to consider both the value of primary assessment and also the unintended consequences they have on schools and teachers.

2. KS2 SATs probably need rethinking. They've become problematic. But if we're going to scrap something, we have to have an alternative. It's been pretty chaotic for primary staff in the last few years on the assessment front. More uncertainty is an unhelpful distraction.

3. I don’t think the tests themselves are a problem. They're a relatively reliable way of us understanding school standards. Teacher Assessment sounds appealing but after years of doing this, research (and my own experience) shows it to be unreliable and bad for workload.

4. To help lower the stakes around SATs, I suggest publishing 3 year rolling averages of attainment (both APS and %s at a standard) rather than individual years/cohorts. This keeps a degree of accountability but reduces: 'you're only as good as your last set of results'.

5. Another way to reduce the stakes would be to allow flex on the time limit of tests (@MrBoothY6 posted this yesterday). Some stress and exam technique practices are focused on working within a time limit. This could be a quick win if it didn't harm the reliability.

6. I think the Maths & Reading papers are pretty good tests. They’ve raised the bar in primary schools since coming in 3 years ago. I'd keep these in a similar form but shift over to a comparative judgement style for writing with unseen prompts. Current writing system is a mess.

7. I'd consider pushing a revised GPS style test into Year 5 along with perhaps a comparative judgement thing on handwriting. Lots can be secure by then and this reduces the 'all about Year 6' culture with more of a spread of lower stakes testing across KS2.

8. I'd stick with phonics/X tables checks for now. Consider (consult/trial properly) a broader knowledge test (in Y5 /6) which contains content from the wider curriculum (Science, Humanities and R.E. etc.). This could be optional for the first 2 years and then review its impact.

9. I've heard some suggestions that we should do standardised testing in each year. This may be helpful for schools but suggest this should be left to them to make locally. We don’t need to centrally prescribe each school's assessment system. We need space for choice/innovation.

10. (Unpopular view) I'd remove progress measures. Whilst the idea of 'progress' sounds fairer, in reality it's pretty unreliable drawing on 4 yr old Teacher Assessments as a baseline.

11. As @profbeckyallen points out: 'What if we cannot measure pupil progress'. rebeccaallen.co.uk/2018/05/23/wha…

The argument to keep progress measures is often really about accountability; a way of trying to statistically prove impact in contexts where it's hard to raise standards.

12. To address this, we need the accountability system to recognise that low attainment is more often a flag of a challenging context rather than failure of a school.

To raise standards in our most challenging schools should be a collective endeavour of the entire system.

13. I think we should just be more honest about the link between attainment and disadvantaged communities rather than dressing it up with progress measures.

14. I don’t think it's helpful to have healthy looking abstract measures of progress if high numbers of children are leaving school without the necessary knowledge or skills to be successful in the future.

Our mission should be for more educated 11 year olds.

15. For these reasons, I'd scrap plans to introduce the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA). Not because it's cruel or because teachers' assessments aren't helpful. Simply because there will be so much pressure for it to be low and therefore will lose both reliability/validity.

16. On the RBA, I just haven't heard a good argument as to how it will improve standards. Just 'It's better than having KS1 SATs'. I don’t think trying to measure primary schools in a single number is of any help & with 8 years until the first dataset, it feels under-researched.

17. OK - so there's my starter for 10. Feel free to improve it and give me a push where you think you can make it better.