DfE guidelines: magic or sleight of hand?

Ta-da! We now have the government’s guidelines for primary assessment. But has the DfE worked its magic, or just demonstrated sleight of hand, asks Michael Tidd...

In the spring term we found out about this government’s intentions for primary assessment. And not before time! We were consulted back in the autumn and, after carefully considering the responses, the Department for Education has… done its own thing.

Seventy per cent of respondents disagreed with the idea of scaled scores and decile rankings – so the government has decided to only keep the scaled scores. I suppose we could call that a compromise. Over half disagreed with the idea of a baseline test in Reception classes; the government decided to go with the third of people who did agree with them instead, and further agreed with the tiny 15 per cent of people who felt they should be supplied by commercial providers.

Nevertheless, we have what we have. So, from the summer 2016, we’ll see a raft of new tests for Key Stages 1 and 2, including a new Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation test for seven- year-olds. And with levels gone, we’ll instead be informing parents about scaled scores. Education and childcare minister, Liz Truss, says that, with the old system of levels, “parents struggled to understand how their children were actually doing”. Somehow, she imagines that giving a score of something between 80 and 130 will suddenly cause everything to make sense.

Aside from a sort-of-optional, commercially-published baseline test for 4-year-olds, what will we have? In Key Stage 1, the main changes appear to be in terminology. Instead of issuing sub- levels, we will be judging performance against “performance descriptors”. No, I’ve no clue what the difference is either. The there’s the aforementioned ‘SPAG’ test for seven-year-olds to support writing assessment. The tests will continue to be internally-marked to support the judgements of teachers, although it appears we may go back to having new tests every year.

At Key Stage 2, the tests stay broadly the same – although mental mathematics is replaced by written arithmetic. What changes are the results. Instead of levels, we’ll again have these mystical scaled scores: a wonderful bit of hocus-pocus that changes a raw score into some new measure, with 100 representing the ‘expected standard’. A cynic might wonder how this conversion will be decided, since it would surely be politically convenient for results to rise in the run-up to an election. But I, of course, am not a cynic.

Alongside all this excitement is the new expectation for floor standards. Up until now schools have been required (wouldn’t “supported” have been a nicer word) to ensure that at least 65 per cent of children reach the Level 4 threshold by the end of Key Stage 2. Alongside planning for the new curriculum, implementing a new code of practice, and preparing for new tests and assessments, this threshold jumps up to 85 per cent of children meeting the new higher standard. All part of the government’s “high expectations should solve everything” strategy.

What has been most interesting about this whole business is the message coming from the ministers at the Department. We’ve heard time and again about how much they want to return power to teachers, and free schools up to do things how they think best. But it seems ministers just can’t help meddling. Within days of the announcements, Liz Truss gave a speech that managed to combine the two contradictory ideas within a few minutes. Having first spoken again of the freedoms being given to schools, she went on to point out that schools ought to use the same system for tests in other year groups because it’s a “much more sensible way to track progress”.

I’ve been tempted to direct Mrs Truss to my blog on why tracking and assessment are not the same thing, but I fear that it might fall on deaf ears. However, the point remains the same: while governments might be interested in tracking, scaled scores and test results, teachers have something for more important to concern themselves with: learning.

The challenge for all of us over the coming terms is going to be balancing those competing demands. Primary teachers are experts at prioritising the needs of the children in the classroom, but with increasing changes on the horizon, that challenge is going to become greater – especially when new ‘freedoms’ are forced upon us. Take care, colleagues. These things may well be sent to try us; we must attempt to rise above the political manoeuvring and maintain our focus where it needs to be: on the teaching and learning of the children in our classes.

About the author

Michael Tidd is a Year Leader at Vale First & Middle School in Sussex. You can read his blog on the changes to primary assessment on michaelt1979.wordpress.com/primaryassessment