Mick Waters: Why don’t we care about the statistics that matter?
When staring too long at charts and graphs, it’s easy to become muddled in our thinking, says Mick Waters… ‘Look,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘we have to deliver results. We’ve had six years to make a difference and what happens in the next round of SATs is vital for public confidence in the government. No […]
- by Mick Waters
When staring too long at charts and graphs, it’s easy to become muddled in our thinking, says Mick Waters…
‘Look,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘we have to deliver results. We’ve had six years to make a difference and what happens in the next round of SATs is vital for public confidence in the government. No excuses.’
‘Be assured that I know, Prime Minister,’ replied the Secretary of State. ‘We are all systems go for a rise in Key Stage 2 mathematics, which will justify our policies since coming to office.’
The Secretary of State went to the next meeting of education ministers and warned them of the need for demonstrable progress and, in turn, they briefed their DfE officials. The DfE officials were troubled, and called an urgent meeting of their Regional Schools’ Commissioners. Much analysis followed, as data was scrutinised for trends and patterns across the country. Where were the hotspots, the blips, the low-hanging fruit? Each Regional Schools’ Commissioner left with a mission to find the schools where improvements were most likely to be achieved. No excuses.
Improvement expected immediately
The Regional Schools’ Commissioner called academy sponsors to his meeting and made the position clear. Some of their schools were underperforming and they needed to up their game. While the sponsors protested that they had assumed responsibility for the schools but a short while ago, it was made plain that improvement was long overdue and expected immediately. Otherwise, the schools would be moved to another sponsor. The sponsor pored over the analysis of the group of schools and looked for the one most ripe to deliver the required improvement. The school’s head was called to a meeting with the sponsor and left in no doubt about what was expected. She left with evidence of where there were gaps in attainment and questions about progress. The head knew her job was on the line. No excuses. The senior leaders were called to meet with the head, who had now analysed the data for the current Year 6 and identified target groups of children. Disparities between classes were highlighted, and the head put pressure on the leader of Key Stage 2 to address the variable quality of teaching. The co-ordinator of mathematics was given a deal of discomfort, and the teacher responsible for pupil premium was called to account. The head had identified the groups of pupils on the cusp; they would make all the difference. The Key Stage 2 teachers were confronted and their protests about inaccurate prior data fell upon stony ground, as they were warned to get the right intervention to the right pupils at the right time. The Key Stage 2 leader had looked at the data forensically and worked out the specific pupils where intervention would bring the necessary outcomes. Each teacher was asked to explain on a child-by-child basis what was being done to lift results. No excuses. Ronnie and the graphs To keep the lions at bay, the teachers listed the specific interventions required for each child. The intervention support teacher was charged with making sure that specifics were addressed before the SATs, which were approaching with undue speed. The support assistant was given clear, performance-managed instructions about which children should be taught what, and what they should practise. Ronnie, for instance, needed to learn how to interpret graphs. Ronnie enjoyed going to see the support assistant. He liked the personal attention and the feeling that someone saw him as special. He liked his learning objectives, and enjoyed his work being marked in green so that he could write an answer in purple and get something else written in orange. That made it fun. On the day of the SAT test he got up very early, as usual. Ronnie was a young carer. He woke his mum and made her breakfast, bathed her, and made sure she took the right medicine. He washed up, tidied round and left for school. He had quite forgotten about the SAT; it was maths today. He did his best, but got muddled on the graphs about how many children liked different sorts of fruits more than other children liked them. It wasn’t that interesting to Ronnie, and he had a lot on his mind. He did, though, put an answer in every box because he had been told that was important.
Crestfallen, miffed and tetchy In due course, the papers went to the marker. The marker smiled at Ronnie’s seemingly random answers and could see that he had tried…but he couldn’t award a mark. When the grade boundaries were agreed and the results returned to the school, Ronnie’s paper fell just outside Level 4. His support assistant was disappointed and his teacher was crestfallen. The senior leadership was downcast, because the overall score for the school showed a ‘blip’. The Regional Schools’ Commissioner was miffed because the aggregated results for his patch were nearly good enough to put the regional average above concern, but not quite. The DfE officials were tetchy, because they had to tell the minister that the challenge and support had not borne fruit. The Secretary of State had to carry the news to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was ashen when told that the national results had fallen just short of the target. The graphs were showing the proportions of groups of pupils who were and were not succeeding. He needed a plausible explanation about these statistics to offer the public and vowed that something must be done, urgently. Had he known, Ronnie would have been pleased that someone in such high office apparently had his best interests at heart and was going to do something about his situation. The Office for National Statistics estimates that 244,000 children are young carers in England. There are 96,000 young carers in primary schools.
Statistics are important. The danger of product control testing is that people like Ronnie get factored out of the process in the quest for headline figures.
Mick Waters is Professor of Education at Wolverhampton University.
