Professor David Hopkins HSBC iNET Chair of International Leadership

1. ‘Establishing educational standards and monitoring student performance – relating national and international perspectives and instruments. A perspective from England.’10th OECD - Japan International SeminarTokyo, 24th June 2005 Professor David HopkinsHSBC iNET Chair of International Leadership

2. Brief History of Standards in Primary Schools 11 plus dominated Standards and Professional control "Formal" accountability "Informal" NLNS 2004 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

3. KNOWLEDGE POOR 1980s Uninformed prescription 1970s Uninformed professional judgement NATIONAL PRESCRIPTION PROFESSIONAL JUDGEMENT 2000s Informed professional judgement judgement 1990s Informed prescription KNOWLEDGE RICH

4. Towards Informed Prescription: National Curriculum and Tests The Education Reform Act 1988 took control of curriculum and assessment out of the hands of local authorities and examining boards by prescribing: • a National Curriculum for all pupils of: mathematics, English and science; and history, geography, technology, music, art, physical education and a modern foreign language. • clear attainment targets: detailing the knowledge, skills and understanding pupils should gain • clear assessment procedures: comprised of national curriculum tests at 7, 11, 14 and 16 • publication of results: at schools level, made available to the public

5. Developing Informed Prescription: Policy framework Intervention in inverse proportion to success Ambitious Standards High Challenge High Support Devolved responsibility Accountability Access to best practice and quality professional development Good data and clear targets

6. National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy • Problems identified in Primary schools: • inconsistency in standards; • fragmented provision in schools; • concerns over subject knowledge; • poor links across the curriculum. • Response: • promote good classroom provision & effective management • use targets to raise expectations and aspirations; • identify, support and disseminate good practice • provide high quality training and materials to teachers over a sustained period • develop and fund effective intervention programmes

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10. Distribution of Reading Achievement in 9-10 year olds in 2001 575 550 525 500 475 450 425 400 375 350 325 300 Italy Israel Belize Latvia Turkey France Kuwait Cyprus Greece Iceland Norway Sweden Hungary England Bulgaria Slovenia Germany Morocco Scotland Romania Lithuania Colombia Argentina Singapore Netherlands New Zealand United States Czech Republic Hong Kong SAR Slovak Republic Moldova, Rep of International Avg. Macedonia, Rep of Iran, Islamic Rep of Russian Federation Canada (Ontario,Quebec) Source: PIRLS 2001 International Report: IEA’s Study of Reading Literacy Achievement in Primary Schools

11. Towards a High Excellence, High Equity Education System 560 High excellence Low equity High excellence High equity Finland 540 U.K. Canada Korea Japan 520 U.S. Belgium 500 Switzerland Spain Germany Mean performance in reading literacy 480 Poland 460 Low excellence Low equity Low excellence High equity 440 420 60 80 100 120 140 • 200 – Variance (variance OECD as a whole = 100) Source: OECD (2001) Knowledge and Skills for Life

12. But in its third term the Government faces a range of educational challenges: • Maintaining progress in primary with the right balance between standards, curriculum breadth, learning to learn and welfare; • Accelerating performance in lower secondary education; • Achieving a settlement at 14 – 19; • Recognising that teaching quality is crucial to achievement; • Tackling underperformance at all levels; • Addressing deprivation as the root cause of low attainment.

13. High Excellence, High Equity Towards Informed Professionalism National Prescription Schools Leading Reform a b c Personalised Learning

14. The published response is the 5 year strategy The 5 Year Strategy • At 0 – 2 years old, a wide range of accessible, affordable high quality early learning and childcare • At 3 – 4 years old, flexible ‘educare’ – integrated education and childcare – to meet families’ needs • From age 5, wrap-around childcare before and after school & in school holidays • Between 5 and 14 an unrelenting focus on high standards, the acquisition of skills and the induction into a broad and rich curriculum • 14-19 a wider choice of high quality programmes, and more places in popular schools

15. I interpret this to mean a renewed emphasis on the central pillars of existing reform: • Personalisation of curriculum, teaching and learning • Workforce Reform and reducing within school variation • A New Relationship with Schools • More Intelligent Accountability System • Networks to spread innovation & school in challenging circumstances • A focus on System Leadership

16. (i) Personalised Learning: Adding Value to the Learning Journey I get to learn lots of interesting and different subjects I know what my learning objectives are and feel in control of my learning I can get a level 4 in English and Maths before I go to secondary school I know what good work looks like and can help myself to learn I know if I need extra help or to be challenged to do better I will get the right support My parents are involved with the school and I feel I belong here I can work well with and learn from many others as well as my teacher I know how I am being assessed and what I need to do to improve my work I can get the job that I want I enjoy using ICT and know how it can help my learning All these …. whatever my background, whatever my abilities, wherever I start from

17. 5 key components of Personalised Learning Assessment for Learning Inner Core Effective Teaching and Learning Curriculum Enrichment and Choice Personalising the School Experience Organising the School for Personalised Learning Beyond the Classroom “We need to engage parents and pupils in a partnership with professional teachers and support staff to deliver tailor made services – to embrace individual choice within as well as between schools and to make it meaningful through public sector reform that gives citizens voice and professional flexibility” (David Miliband, 18 May 2004)

18. (ii) Enhancing Professional Development through Workforce Reform Workforce Reform is essentially about creating the conditions to deliver personalised learning: • Teachers freed to focus on teaching and learning • More professional support staff both in and outside the classroom • Teacher promotion based on classroom practice • Cutting edge ICT to revolutionise curriculum delivery and streamline “back office” systems • Getting the culture right, willingness to re-examine existing models

19. The School as a Professional Learning Community, reducing within school variation • Build in time for collective inquiry • Collective inquiry creates the structural conditions for school improvement • Studying classroom practice increases the focus on student learning • Use the research on teaching and learning to improve school improvement efforts • By working in small groups the whole school staff can become a nurturing unit • Staff Development as inquiry provides synergy and enhanced student effects

20. (iii) A New Relationship with Schools “If we want to make personalised learning the defining feature of our education system then we need to develop a new, focussed and purposeful relationship between the DfES, LEAs and schools.” David Miliband, Minister for Schools, North of England Speech, 9th January 2004 Planning for improvement • 3 year funding • Bottom up targets • Single conversation on school’s future • School Improvement Partners Accountability • Starts from school self-evaluation • Sharper, lighter inspection • Annual profile

21. New Relationship with Schools Single Conversation • new School Standards Grant, combining most grants, from April 2006 • bottom-up targets • multi-year, academic year budgets from April 2006 • enables improvement planning and budgetary planning for the medium term Inputs Focus Outputs • school’s SEF • school’s development • plan • Exceptions report on • student attainment and • equity gaps • value for money • comparisons • Data on pupil attendance • Other data how well is the school performing? what are the key factors? what are the key priorities? how is school going to get there? head’s performance management • report to heads, GB,LEA • self assessment • priority and targets • action and support • agreed package of support inc engagement with other schools • recommendation on specialist schools resignation • advice to GB on HT appraisal

22. (iv) Towards an Intelligent Accountability framework:

23. Balancing Internal and External Assessment Formative Assessment for Learning Pupil Achievement Tracker / FFT External Internal Moderated Teacher Assessment National Curriculum Tests Summative

24. (v) Networks and Innovation Networks supporting educational innovation by: • Providing a focal point for the dissemination of good practice and the agents of knowledge creation, transfer and utilisation. • Keeping the focus on the core purposes of schooling in particular creating and sustaining a discourse on teaching and learning. • Enhancing the skill of teachers. • Building capacity for continuous improvement at the local level. • Ensuring that systems of pressure and support are integrated, not segmented. • Acting as a link between the centralised and decentralised policy initiatives.

25. Intervention Strategies:

26. (vi) System Leadership If our goal is both ‘high equity and excellence’ then policy and practice has to focus on system improvement. This means that a school head or principal has to be almost as concerned about the success of other schools as he or she is about his or her own school. Sustained improvement of schools is not possible unless the whole system is moving forward.

27. Research based conclusions about successful school leadership: • Leadership has significant effects on student learning, second only to the quality of the curriculum and teachers instruction • Heads and teacher leaders provide most of the leadership in schools, but other potential sources of leadership exist • A core set of leadership practices form the “basics” of successful leadership and are valuable in almost all educational contexts • Successful school leaders respond productively to challenges and opportunities created by the accountability-oriented policy context in which they work • Successful school leaders respond productively to opportunities and challenges of educating diverse groups of students.

28. These six reforms will take the UK some of the way, but there will also be pressure to up the ante: • Segmentation, with networks and intervention better targeted at institutional need and context, including through self-evaluation. • Control and management of Demand and Supply, with: • Choice: using parental demand as a driver for improvement; and • Contestibility: expanding supply with new places in good schools, new schools and new providers. • Structural change linked to national professional practice, to ensure increasing teaching quality impacts on standards.

29. The Inside - Out Story Reform is neither only system led nor only schools led, but necessarily both supporting each other: • Schools exist in increasingly complex and turbulent environments, but the best schools ‘turn towards the danger’ • Schools adapt external change for internal purpose. • Schools should use external standards to clarify, integrate and raise their own expectations. • School benefit from highly specified, but not prescribed, models of best practice. • Schools, by themselves and in networks, engage in policy implementation through a process of selecting and integrating innovations through their focus on teaching and learning.

30. KEY STAGE CURRICULUM STRATEGIES INTELLIGENT ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORK LEADERSHIP COLLABORATIVE PLANNING CURRICULUM SCHOOL SPECIALISM & COLLABORATION TEACHING POWERFUL LEARNING EXPERIENCES STAFF DEVELOPMENT NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH SCHOOLS ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INVOLVEMENT

31. PISA, International Benchmarking and a Dialogue on Large Scale reform PISA data not only offers the opportunity for international benchmarking, but can also help develop insights into what kinds of good classroom practice, school organisation and policy levers make a difference. For example groups of relatively similar countries could: • Undertake detailed self analysis on the nature of educational provision in each country at school and classroom level; • Develop hypotheses about the impact of and identification of key drivers for system-wide educational reforms; • Conduct country level research to test hypotheses and develop policy advice; • Compare the policy advice for groups of countries at different levels of performance as measured by PISA.