Evaluating progress and impact

1. Evaluating progress and impact John MacBeath University of Cambridge

2. A third space The aim of teaching is not produce learning but to provide the conditions for learning to take place (James Bradburne) Painting outside the frame (Ger Graus) ‘New skills’ – communication and teamwork (Megan and Taylor) Having the tools to figure it out

3. When fleas are captured for the flea circus they are placed in jars and the lids are screwed on. When the fleas jumped in the jars, they would hit their heads on the lids. They still wanted to jump so they learned to jump just high enough so that they wouldn't hit their heads. The trainer then comes back and takes the fleas out of the jars and puts them in the circus. Even though the fleas now have the whole sky above them, they still do not jump past their now self-imposed limits. Even though the fleas are now free, they have made the limits truly theirs by refusing to go beyond them.

4. The definition of insanity To go on doing the same thing and expecting different results

5. The peer and neighbourhood effect ‘You can take the child out of the neighborhood but much more difficult to take the neighbourhood out of the child’.  ‘Neighbourhood, peer effect and its associated values are hard to eradicate, but for children and their families ‘locked in neighborhoods of corrosive, concentrated poverty expanding opportunities, enhancing social networks and peer groups are all essential aspect of substantive improvement in academic and social environments and their inter-relationship. (Smaker and Betey, 2011)

6. A world of learning Ten to eleven years olds: • Hours in school 900 • Hours at home 1,277 • Hours in the virtual world 1,934 (Baroness Susan Greenfield, 2010)

7. Inside the black box The effectiveness perspective Attainment in Attainment out

8. What knowledge is of most worth? We couldn’t find a mechanism to show we valued the things we didn’t test. That was the problem. We always valued the other things but we couldn’t find a way of showing it, that’s the problem. We need to get to a situation where there’s a way of showing how much we value dancing, music, sport and PE; how much we value how much improvement children make in the widest sense and that really gets into the public consciousness. (Estelle Morris, Education Minister)

9. NESTED LIVES Children and young people live nested lives, so that when classrooms do not function as we want them to, we go to work on improving them. Those classrooms are in schools, so when we decide that those schools are not performing appropriately, we go to work on improving them, as well. But those young people are also situated in families, in neighbourhoods, in peer groups who shape attitudes and aspirations often more powerfully than their parents or teachers. (David Berliner, 2005)

10. School as an anchor My thinking [was] that if you were really interested in development of the education of the child then you had to think of schools being a kind of anchor but an anchor orchestrating sets of experiences beyond school. (Sir Tim Brighouse, in Bangs, MacBeath & Galton, 2010)

11. Construction sites internet Peer group Home (s) neighbourhood media Parents(s) School Teacher(s) Learning destinations classroom Extra curricular activities

12. Four big questions • Does the Children’s University make a difference? • In what way? • How do we know? • What do we do about it?

13. Attendance Achievement Attitudes

14. Attendance 329 measures between 2007and 2010, comparing C.U. and non-C.U. pupils, On only 23 of these measures is there no difference (or a difference in favour of non-CU pupils).

15. KS1

16. KS2

17. KS3

19. Professional accountability is based on data, not as a final judgment but as part of the toolkit for understanding current performance and formulating plans for reasonable action…. not as a static numerical accounting but as a conversation, using data to stimulate discussion, challenge ideas, rethink directions, and monitor progress, providing an ongoing image of [learning] as it changes, progresses, stalls, regroups, and moves forward again. (Earl and Katz, 2006: 13). Data is for dialogue

20. “Numbers are like people. Torture them enough and they will tell you anything” (Stephen Gorard) • Case stories • Interviews • Focus groups • Observation and participation • Travellers’ tales • Partners , patrons and products

22. What do I already know or can do? • CONNECT • EXTEND • CHALLENGE How does this extend my knowledge or skill? How does this challenge my knowledge or skill?

23. Beyond curriculum and Assessment smart Curriculum and assessment • What are the connections? • Who makes them? • How are they made? • How do we know?