Festival of Education 2016, Day 1 – Bremner Steps In
Rory Bremner makes a good impression, Daisy Christoloudou takes issue with Assessment for Learning and Jarlath O’Brian decries 'fake inclusion' in the first of several reports by Helen Mulley from this year's Festival of Education…
- by Helen Mulley
Similar to last year, the 2016 Festival of Education started out for many of its attendees with an extra couple of hours spent crawling around the M25 – and it seems likely that this was the case for a number of speakers too, because when I arrived I discovered that the programme had been put back for a clear hour…
Session 3
Jarlath O’Brian – ‘Entitlement? Yes. Inclusion? No.’
Jarlath O’Brian, head teacher at Carwarden House Community School delivered a thought provoking presentation on what he described as ‘fake inclusion’.
He observed that too often, inclusion within the mainstream actually means ‘Getting the child to make adjustments in order to function within a particular setting/system’ – rather than, as it should be, ‘Making sure that the child has everything to which he/she is entitled, in order to learn’.
One slide explained in pretty stark terms why this matters – because life outcomes for young people with SEN are still appallingly poor. Discussion afterwards involved a good deal of frustration , and some empowering peer support.
You can read more of our 2016 Festival of Education coverage here
Main image: RTPeat via Flickr
Session 2
Daisy Christoloudou – ‘Why did Assessment for Learning Fail?’
It came as no surprise to learn that the reason Daisy Christoloudou thinks Assessment for Learning has failed is essentially that ‘We’ve been teaching wrongly for decades’.
However, she’s now reframed the increasingly tedious and emotive ‘progressive/traditional’ or ‘knowledge/skills’ debate – sticking with the binary model, but renaming the two approaches to pedagogy as ‘generic skills’ and ‘deliberate practice’, and focusing very much on our understanding of working and long-term memories by way of supporting evidence.
Her critique of AfL – not the theory or underpinning research, but how it is currently implemented in schools – was pretty compelling, and there were plenty of nodding heads around me. She argued that the way to instil necessary skills (for example, ‘critical thinking’ or ‘analytical writing’, is to not ask children to participate in similar looking tasks to the real-life ones we are hoping ultimately to prepare them to tackle effectively (ie. ‘performance tasks’). Instead, she proposed breaking down those skills into their component elements – such as spelling, clear pronoun use and times tables – and practising those in isolation, with feedback.
This, she explained, enables AfL to be, as it needs to be, both accurate and useful – assessment for, not of, learning; something that, unlike simply repeating confusing APP wording, can actually help children progress. Project-based lessons are still, for Daisy, if not completely off the table, then certainly not something around which one should design a curriculum.
There only time for three questions. Daisy responded to a lengthy point about how deliberate practice is all very well, but that no one would have time to spend 10,000 hours on every single element of every single skill for every single student, by insisting that actually, deliberate practice is quicker and easier for teachers than the generic skills approach.
She also fielded a question on differentiation by suggesting, if I understood her correctly, that the deliberate practice approach used from the start would mean that all pupils would pretty much learn at the same rate and to the same high level anyway, making differentiation largely superfluous.
Finally, she confirmed that there is a place for ‘performance tasks’ in the learning classroom – but that these should by no means take up the bulk of pupils’ time, and certainly shouldn’t be used for anything but summative, not formative, assessment.
Session 3
Jarlath O’Brian – ‘Entitlement? Yes. Inclusion? No.’
Jarlath O’Brian, head teacher at Carwarden House Community School delivered a thought provoking presentation on what he described as ‘fake inclusion’.
He observed that too often, inclusion within the mainstream actually means ‘Getting the child to make adjustments in order to function within a particular setting/system’ – rather than, as it should be, ‘Making sure that the child has everything to which he/she is entitled, in order to learn’.
One slide explained in pretty stark terms why this matters – because life outcomes for young people with SEN are still appallingly poor. Discussion afterwards involved a good deal of frustration , and some empowering peer support.
You can read more of our 2016 Festival of Education coverage here
Main image: RTPeat via Flickr
Rory Bremner
This meant that I could catch the opening keynote, which originally supposed to be delivered by Nicky Morgan. She pulled out, however, claiming ‘reasons to do with the referendum’ (Yes, I sent my postal vote off a while back, since you ask). So, as it tends to do on these occasions, host venue Wellington College rifled through its alumni list and came up with none other than Rory Bremner – all the politicians you could want, for the price of… well, one Rory Bremner.
Strangely, Ms Morgan was one of the few Westminster notables the comedian didn’t pull into his speech, which was a pacy 40 minutes or so – half political satire and half heartfelt plea for all teachers to look out for the undiagnosed ADHD children in their classroom, of whom he had been one. One third of all our prison population are said to have undiagnosed ADHD, he claimed; the dark flipside to the condition that also contributes to some amazing accomplishments of creativity and innovation.
He ended with a call for teachers to ‘Get up off your knees, stand up for your beliefs, and celebrate the profession’ – which went down somewhat better than what NM presumably imagined was a similar message delivered by her to the NASUWT conference back in March…
Session 2
Daisy Christoloudou – ‘Why did Assessment for Learning Fail?’
It came as no surprise to learn that the reason Daisy Christoloudou thinks Assessment for Learning has failed is essentially that ‘We’ve been teaching wrongly for decades’.
However, she’s now reframed the increasingly tedious and emotive ‘progressive/traditional’ or ‘knowledge/skills’ debate – sticking with the binary model, but renaming the two approaches to pedagogy as ‘generic skills’ and ‘deliberate practice’, and focusing very much on our understanding of working and long-term memories by way of supporting evidence.
Her critique of AfL – not the theory or underpinning research, but how it is currently implemented in schools – was pretty compelling, and there were plenty of nodding heads around me. She argued that the way to instil necessary skills (for example, ‘critical thinking’ or ‘analytical writing’, is to not ask children to participate in similar looking tasks to the real-life ones we are hoping ultimately to prepare them to tackle effectively (ie. ‘performance tasks’). Instead, she proposed breaking down those skills into their component elements – such as spelling, clear pronoun use and times tables – and practising those in isolation, with feedback.
This, she explained, enables AfL to be, as it needs to be, both accurate and useful – assessment for, not of, learning; something that, unlike simply repeating confusing APP wording, can actually help children progress. Project-based lessons are still, for Daisy, if not completely off the table, then certainly not something around which one should design a curriculum.
There only time for three questions. Daisy responded to a lengthy point about how deliberate practice is all very well, but that no one would have time to spend 10,000 hours on every single element of every single skill for every single student, by insisting that actually, deliberate practice is quicker and easier for teachers than the generic skills approach.
She also fielded a question on differentiation by suggesting, if I understood her correctly, that the deliberate practice approach used from the start would mean that all pupils would pretty much learn at the same rate and to the same high level anyway, making differentiation largely superfluous.
Finally, she confirmed that there is a place for ‘performance tasks’ in the learning classroom – but that these should by no means take up the bulk of pupils’ time, and certainly shouldn’t be used for anything but summative, not formative, assessment.
Session 3
Jarlath O’Brian – ‘Entitlement? Yes. Inclusion? No.’
Jarlath O’Brian, head teacher at Carwarden House Community School delivered a thought provoking presentation on what he described as ‘fake inclusion’.
He observed that too often, inclusion within the mainstream actually means ‘Getting the child to make adjustments in order to function within a particular setting/system’ – rather than, as it should be, ‘Making sure that the child has everything to which he/she is entitled, in order to learn’.
One slide explained in pretty stark terms why this matters – because life outcomes for young people with SEN are still appallingly poor. Discussion afterwards involved a good deal of frustration , and some empowering peer support.
You can read more of our 2016 Festival of Education coverage here
Main image: RTPeat via Flickr
Session 1
The Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP
Rory Bremner
This meant that I could catch the opening keynote, which originally supposed to be delivered by Nicky Morgan. She pulled out, however, claiming ‘reasons to do with the referendum’ (Yes, I sent my postal vote off a while back, since you ask). So, as it tends to do on these occasions, host venue Wellington College rifled through its alumni list and came up with none other than Rory Bremner – all the politicians you could want, for the price of… well, one Rory Bremner.
Strangely, Ms Morgan was one of the few Westminster notables the comedian didn’t pull into his speech, which was a pacy 40 minutes or so – half political satire and half heartfelt plea for all teachers to look out for the undiagnosed ADHD children in their classroom, of whom he had been one. One third of all our prison population are said to have undiagnosed ADHD, he claimed; the dark flipside to the condition that also contributes to some amazing accomplishments of creativity and innovation.
He ended with a call for teachers to ‘Get up off your knees, stand up for your beliefs, and celebrate the profession’ – which went down somewhat better than what NM presumably imagined was a similar message delivered by her to the NASUWT conference back in March…
Session 2
Daisy Christoloudou – ‘Why did Assessment for Learning Fail?’
It came as no surprise to learn that the reason Daisy Christoloudou thinks Assessment for Learning has failed is essentially that ‘We’ve been teaching wrongly for decades’.
However, she’s now reframed the increasingly tedious and emotive ‘progressive/traditional’ or ‘knowledge/skills’ debate – sticking with the binary model, but renaming the two approaches to pedagogy as ‘generic skills’ and ‘deliberate practice’, and focusing very much on our understanding of working and long-term memories by way of supporting evidence.
Her critique of AfL – not the theory or underpinning research, but how it is currently implemented in schools – was pretty compelling, and there were plenty of nodding heads around me. She argued that the way to instil necessary skills (for example, ‘critical thinking’ or ‘analytical writing’, is to not ask children to participate in similar looking tasks to the real-life ones we are hoping ultimately to prepare them to tackle effectively (ie. ‘performance tasks’). Instead, she proposed breaking down those skills into their component elements – such as spelling, clear pronoun use and times tables – and practising those in isolation, with feedback.
This, she explained, enables AfL to be, as it needs to be, both accurate and useful – assessment for, not of, learning; something that, unlike simply repeating confusing APP wording, can actually help children progress. Project-based lessons are still, for Daisy, if not completely off the table, then certainly not something around which one should design a curriculum.
There only time for three questions. Daisy responded to a lengthy point about how deliberate practice is all very well, but that no one would have time to spend 10,000 hours on every single element of every single skill for every single student, by insisting that actually, deliberate practice is quicker and easier for teachers than the generic skills approach.
She also fielded a question on differentiation by suggesting, if I understood her correctly, that the deliberate practice approach used from the start would mean that all pupils would pretty much learn at the same rate and to the same high level anyway, making differentiation largely superfluous.
Finally, she confirmed that there is a place for ‘performance tasks’ in the learning classroom – but that these should by no means take up the bulk of pupils’ time, and certainly shouldn’t be used for anything but summative, not formative, assessment.
Session 3
Jarlath O’Brian – ‘Entitlement? Yes. Inclusion? No.’
Jarlath O’Brian, head teacher at Carwarden House Community School delivered a thought provoking presentation on what he described as ‘fake inclusion’.
He observed that too often, inclusion within the mainstream actually means ‘Getting the child to make adjustments in order to function within a particular setting/system’ – rather than, as it should be, ‘Making sure that the child has everything to which he/she is entitled, in order to learn’.
One slide explained in pretty stark terms why this matters – because life outcomes for young people with SEN are still appallingly poor. Discussion afterwards involved a good deal of frustration , and some empowering peer support.
You can read more of our 2016 Festival of Education coverage here
Main image: RTPeat via Flickr
