Pace N.Ireland Education Weblog

Learning about Learning expert bites hand at Headteachers’ annual conference

paceni — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:07:40 +0000

It seems that Assessment for Learning in Scotland is not being swallowed as readily as in Northern Ireland.

A guest speaker at the Annual Conference of Headmasters in Scotland created an embarrassment when he criticised the use of “brain training” devices as an aid to the teaching of maths.

Professor Della Sala is prominently featured on the Learning and Teaching Scotland website on the Learning about Learning section http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learningaboutlearning/aboutlal/biogs/biogsergiodellasala.asp

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/index.asp

Dr Sergio Della Sala is Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the relationship between the brain and behaviour, with particular reference to memory and amnesia. He has held appointments at various university institutions throughout the world. Sergio has published many influential papers and has written several books related to the brain.

“The message for parents, is always look at the available data.”

Professor Della SalaThe criticism from Professor Della Sala came in a speech to Scotland’s headteachers at their annual conference. He said: “This research shows that when pupils in a school use a games console after 10 weeks they become a bit better in performing maths but the same applies to the students who did not use the console.

“It may be fun, but it is not a learning device.”

“The message for teachers who are bombarded with these new flim-flam initiatives about how they should improve their teaching is they are good professionals, they should resist.

“The message for parents, is always look at the available data.

“Who says this improves the performance of their kids? Show me the evidence.

“This study shows there is no advantage – why should we spend money on finding out more rather than spending money on good teaching and good learning?”

Professor Della Sala’s comments were undoubtedly unexpected; the errors behind Assessment for Learning were not.

Tagged: AHDS, Carol Magennis, Dr Sergio Della Sala, Learning about Learning, Learning and Teaching Scotland, Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh

Why selection at 14 cannot work: Belfast Telegraph Opinion article

paceni — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:48:37 +0000

The future of education cannot be compromised

The search for a consensus in the debate over post-primary education is flawed, simplistic and anti-democratic, says Robert McCartney QC. Either we retain selection, or we don’t

Friday, 18 December 2009

While the good intentions of the Belfast Telegraph in attempting to resolve the chaos in education are praiseworthy, it is doubtful if its Sit Down, Sort It Out campaign will provide the solution.

Sentiments such as ‘agreement’ and ‘consensus’ invest their users with a halo of goodness, but rarely address the complexities of the issues.

The popular belief that every problem is capable of solution by getting people to sit around a table to achieve compromise consensus is both flawed and simplistic. It is also the antithesis in many cases of the democratic process. True representative democracy accepts that the electorate may make a choice between conflicting policies and offers procedures for a decision between them in the absence of agreement.

In place of real democracy, Northern Ireland has a permanent mandatory consensual requirement so in the absence of agreement nothing is decided and chaos prevails.

The DUP claims that at St Andrews it preserved the principle of selective education. Sinn Fein and the SDLP, having removed the 11-Plus as the method of selection can however effectively block any alternative form, thereby rendering any regulated implementation of the principle impossible.

For a newspaper to advocate a particular consensual solution that would require one or other of the conflicting opinions to prevail, is a course of action fraught with danger.

The present crisis in education centres on the differences between those who believe in selection and those who oppose it.

The former see the purpose of an educational system as one which provides every child an equal opportunity to attend a school best suited to the fullest realisation of its potential. This requires a selective process.

Those who oppose selection believe that the purpose of a school system is not simply to provide appropriate excellent education; it is a means of implementing a system of social engineering to advance some ideological idea or political policy of which they approve. They do not believe in the liberal concept of equality of opportunity – they advocate the Marxist idea of equality of results.

Divested of any political content and viewed objectively, the selection system in Northern Ireland has for years produced the best GCSE and A-Level results in the United Kingdom and totally outperformed its comprehensive counterparts.

In terms of upward social mobility which education is supposed to promote, 42% of the Northern Ireland students going to university are from the lower income groups compared with some 28% from the comprehensives in England and Wales.

In terms of quality education, the demise of the grammar schools is now almost universally acknowledged as a mistake which it is nearly impossible to reverse. The eminent sociologist and educationalist Musgrove described the Labour Party’s betrayal of the working class by the introduction of the comprehensive system in the following terms:

”The Labour Party did not abolish the Great Public Schools, the obvious stronghold of upper class privilege. With unbelievable perversity they extinguished the only serious hope of working class parity. The upper class kept their public schools, the working class lost theirs.”

Critics of selection, forced to accept the excellent results of the grammar schools, counter by alleging the system produces a long tail of under-achievers. This is not even supported by the minister’s Education Department. In the department’s report for the year ending 2008 it confirms that of some 24,000 school leavers, only 850 left without a GSCE – a result that compares favourably with mainland Britain’s comprehensive system.

Northern Ireland’s grammar schools have demonstrated their determination to maintain their commitment to academic excellence in the face of pressure from political parties, clerical institutions, and those progressive educationalists whose theories have failed on both sides of the Atlantic.

Parents exercising the choice offered to them by the grammar schools have shown their support by the number of their children they have submitted to the tests provided. Before the introduction of the foundation curriculum designed to abolish the free preparation for the 11-Plus provided by the primary schools, lower-income parents did not need to pay for coaching. It is these parents whose children could possibly suffer some future disadvantage.

Insofar as it can be discerned the Belfast Telegraph’s Sit Down, Sort It Out campaign seems to have settled on transfer at 14 as the preferred option. In support of this, an array of educational experts was assembled.

Of the few that are professionally engaged in education, both Professors Smyth and Gallagher are publicly declared anti-selection activists. At this point, it should be noted transfer at 14 can be effected either by a selective process, as in the Dickson Plan, operating in Craigavon, or an elective process by parents, as proposed by the minister.

Under the Dickson Plan, pupils at age 11 left primary school without sitting the 11-Plus, but having sat year-end tests used for streaming them when they moved to junior high schools for years 11-14.

At age 14, based on tests and streaming, they progressed either to senior 11-16 high schools for the lower streams or grammar schools for the higher-stream pupils. Research indicated that those in the lower streams underachieved.

In November 1998, the Department of Education commissioned Queen’s University Education Department to evaluate the Dickson Plan as an alternative to the 11-Plus. This research was led by none other than Professor Tony Gallagher.

It concluded the Dickson Plan was both too porous and small to provide a comparative position vis-a-vis the 11-Plus. In any event, the Dickson Plan was a selective one and completely different from the elective transfer at 14 proposed by Minister Ruane.

The minister’s proposal is that, at 11, each child would transfer to its nearest neighbourhood school whether a grammar or secondary modern. There would be no selection and each school’s intake would be ‘all ability’ as in the comprehensive system.

At age 14, the child’s parents would elect if it would remain at that school, or move to a school more suited to its abilities. The basis of assessment for such election remains unclear, but the consequences can be imagined.

For example, a child of modest ability from a middle-class suburban home goes to his or her nearest neighbourhood school which is a grammar. At age 14, its parents elect that it will remain there since it is close, discipline is good and they find it socially acceptable.

Their position is, in parental terms, understandable. In an inner-city secondary modern with an indifferent record, the parents of an exceedingly bright child from a public housing estate find it impossible to get a place in a school that will maximise its abilities due to ‘desk blocking’.

The problems that have plagued the comprehensive system will be repeated in Northern Ireland and upward social mobility from lower income group children will plummet. Money, postcode and coaching will replace merit and ability as the basis for selection.

The real objection to elective transfer at 14 is the fact that since every ‘neighbourhood’ school will have to take an unselected ‘all-ability intake’ it will become, by definition, a comprehensive school.

In effect, the grammar school system based on selected pupils will be permanently destroyed; hardly the material for an acceptable consensual compromise!

Over the years, I have been grateful to the Belfast Telegraph for publishing a series of detailed articles on various aspects of education. The contents of this article are, to a degree, critical of the Sit Down, Sort It Out campaign and the consensus principle upon which it moves. In these circumstances, and as United Kingdom Chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association, I offer my sincere thanks to the editor for permitting me to restore, in my view, a degree of balance to the debate.

Consensus is not in every circumstance possible for, as Winston Churchill once remarked, “Where is the point of compromise between the fireman and the arsonist”, or in the circumstances of this debate, between those who seek to preserve the demonstrably excellent and those who seek to destroy it.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/the-future-of-education-cannot-be-compromised-14603314.html#ixzz0aPAMN8SA

Tagged: academic selection, Belfast Telegraph, Grammar Schools, National Grammar Schools Association, NGSA, Robert McCartney, Sit Down - Sort it Out

SAT boycott by teachers “damages children’s education and futures”

paceni — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:21:26 +0000

So says Conor Ryan, who describes himself as “A blogger about politics, education, a Dublin-born writer and consultant, former adviser to Tony Blair and David Blunkett on education, based in Bath in the South West of England.”

http://conorfryan.blogspot.com/2009/12/just-18-of-nut-members-back-their.html

Citing a Guardian report, http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/dec/10/vote-weakens-sats-boycott

The National Association of Head Teachers, the union that represents many of the heads in primary schools, has already voted to back a boycott of the tests, but is unlikely to go ahead without the NUT.

The tests for 11-year-olds in English, maths and science were introduced in 1995 and have always been controversial. Much of the opposition to the tests stems from the use of results to create league tables.

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, has announced reforms to next year’s tests which will see teacher assessments published alongside the externally marked tests.

Northern Ireland already publish these data. When PACE analysed the results one of the most obvious findings was the disparity between teacher assessments and the externally marked tests. Parents are likely to be misled over their child’s attainment by a significant margin.

Last weeks failure by the local media, including the BBC, to pick up on the dramatic decline in standards of lietracy and numeracy in post-primary schools http://paceni.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/northern-ireland%e2%80%99s-key-stage-3-literacy-levels-crash/ demonstrates the problem of accepting teacher union claims as being representative of their members.

The crying shame for parents and children is that individual teachers do not have the courage to raise their heads above the parapet and speak out.

Tagged: BBC, BBC Northern Ireland Education Correspondent, Conor Ryan, Ed Balls, Key Stage 3 results, KS3, Literacy, NAHT, Numeracy and Literacy Strategy, NUT, SATS, The Guardian

The Los Angeles Times warns about lack of teacher accountability: The Northern Ireland position

paceni — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:12:16 +0000

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/education/la-me-teacher-tenure20-2009dec20,0,2529590.story

The Northern Ireland General Teaching Council has no power to fire poor teachers

A Times investigation found that the Los Angeles Unified School District routinely grants tenure to new teachers after cursory reviews — and sometimes none at all.

Evaluating new teachers for tenure is one of a principal’s most important responsibilities. Once instructors have permanent status, they are almost never fired for performance reasons alone. The two-year probation period, during which teachers can be fired at will, offers a singular opportunity to weed out poor performers.

Tagged: Los Angeles Times, Northern Ireland teachers, teachers

Northern Ireland’s Key Stage 3 literacy levels crash

paceni — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:20:40 +0000

The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education Northern Ireland Branch Press Release 17/09 Thursday, 17 December 2009

PACE has uncovered that in the last 2 years Northern Ireland’s Key Stage 3 literacy levels have crashed. The general decline in pupils’ attainment is best evidenced in the results obtained in English at Key Stage 3. Statistical figures obtained from the Council for Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) demonstrate a year-on-year decline in the Levels of attainment obtained in the examinations. Key Stage 3 tests are taken by students in third year at post-primary school.

Selected Results of Northern Ireland Key Stage 3 Assessments 2004 – 2009 Source: CCEA: Key Stage 3 Assessment 2008/2009 NORTHERN IRELAND SUMMARY http://www.ccea.org.uk/ HOME » CURRICULUM » KEY STAGE 3 » Research and Statistics

PACE PR KS3 Dec09

In an unexplained development the pupil absence figures for Key Stage testing have risen from a baseline of around 3% to a staggering 44.5% this year.

The Government examination body statistics also show that in recent years following the introduction of the revised curriculum Teacher Assessment predictions have overestimated the pupils’ actual results by a factor of two or more. (See Table above) The natural consequence is that both the parent and pupil will believe that satisfactory progress is being made and discover too late the truth of the matter after irreplaceable learning time has been lost.

In 2006 the decline in standards in literacy was critically highlighted by reports of the Northern Ireland Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee in Westminster. Responses by the Department of Education Permanent Secretary, Will Haire, promised to focus on improvement. (See DENI Circular 2007/11) The Circular states: “The Department of Education accords a high priority to literacy and numeracy in line with the revised Northern Ireland Curriculum and asks all teachers, at all key stages, to seek to promote literacy and numeracy in the classroom.” In February 2007 the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel issued a Memorandum on the 2nd and 3rd Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts Session 2006-2007. An abstract from the report states: “The creation of a new, single Education and Skills Authority (ESA) to support the school system from April 2008 will also have a positive impact on literacy and numeracy. The primary task of the ESA will be to work with schools to improve quality and raise standards across the system and to place literacy and numeracy at the centre of this responsibility.”

Instead of improvements the Key Stage 3 literacy levels have crashed. As parents can see from the CCEA figures the Department of Education has failed on this vital issue yet again. While the decline in pupils achieving Level 6 at KS3 has doubled over a five year period and the negative trend has almost tripled at Level 7 there has been no comment or concern raised from any quarter of the education establishment. The fact that none of the highly paid education watchdogs have reported that something has gone seriously wrong must reflect a degree of complacency over numeracy and literacy.

PACE believes the Revised Curriculum to be the chief suspect in the literacy decline. The questions must be put;

• What is going to be done to reverse this numeracy and literacy decline in schools before the betrayal of an entire generation of pupils in Northern Ireland becomes irreversible?

• When will those responsible for failed education initiatives be actually held to account?

Tagged: CCEA, ccea test, DENI, Gavin Boyd, Incas, Incas assessment, Key Stage 3 results, NIAO, Numeracy and Literacy Strategy, Public Accounts Committee, revised curriculum, Will Haire

The Belfast Telegraph’s campaign to end academic selection.

paceni — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:20:47 +0000

Pro selection parents: Our papers are not for you

http://events.belfastmedia.com/?p=460

Only towards the end of the Belfast Telegraph “Sit Down – Sort it Out” did they reveal their default anti-academic selection position . There can be no doubt that readers convinced otherwise by previous Belfast Telegraph campaigns reflecting popular views on selection have been misled. Sinn Fein John O’Dowd’s refusal to participate may have given the impression that his objection was based on the Belfast Telegraph’s support for a choice of academic selection. The Belfast Telegraph made no such commitment. The rival Belfast Media Group proved that impression false.

This isn't what parents signed up for

Tagged: academic selection at 11, Andersontown News, Belfast Media Group, Belfast Telegraph, Caitriona Ruane, Kathryn Torney, North Belfast News, primary school transfer tests, regulated tests at 11, Sit Down - Sort it Out, South Belfast News

ESA: The real costs

paceni — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:26:28 +0000

That'll be £7 million please

The non-entity Education & Skills Authority has cost taxpayers over £7 million pounds to date. The Parental Alliance for Choice in Education has warned politicians and the media about the track record of the Chief Executive (designate) Gavin Boyd who practiced prolifigate spending while running CCEA. In times of economic recession,when public confidence is low, it must be seen to be onscene that ESAIT have been afforded a blank check by those politicians responsible for fiscal oversight and probity.

Of course the politicians are hardly the exemplar for accounting for their expenses. Caitriona Ruane recently proposed, on behalf of the DENI, that Gavin Boyd is designated accounting officer of ESA.

This is much like putting a fox in charge of accounting to the farmer for the hens and the henhouse.

"Such major expenditure ..must be scrutinised"

The costs were revealed following an Assembly question from UUP MLA Ken Robinson. What was not revealed is that Basil McCrea, the UUP Education Spokesman, was made aware of this issue over a year ago by PACE in a meeting held in his Lisburn constituency office.

Parents can now monitor how quickly the Stormont Education Committee fulfill their accountability role with ESA.

Tagged: Basil McCrea MLA, BBC, CCEA, Education and Skills Authority, ESAIT, Gavin Boyd, Ken Robinson

Selection at 14: A solution from those protectors of children Sinn Fein and the Catholic Church

paceni — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:29:34 +0000

Peter Robinson must think all unionists are educationally disadvantaged. Otherwise he would have thought through his proposal to allow decisions of the Executive, such as on education, to be taken by any three parties. S(election) at 14 has been once again floated by the educationalists including the DENI’s favourite, Professor Tony Gallagher and all the main churches. Since the Catholic Church have found themselves, once again, unable to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the sexual abuse of young people by their clerics it must have crossed the minds of those, aware enough to appreciate that they have a virtual monopoly on the education of Catholic children, that there may be a link.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/catholic-church-supporting-15-priests-accused-of-child-sexual-abuse-14579407.html

If this is Peter Robinson and the DUP’s idea of getting out of jail free on the academic selection at 11 problem they have little concept of the pending backlash. Be careful what you wish for is the best advice PACE can give their educationally and strategy disadvantaged politicians.

Tagged: Belfast Telegraph, Catholic Church, DUP, Peter Robinson., Roman Catholic Church, Sinn Fein

The Peter Robinson Principle: Surrender on Education

paceni — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:18:05 +0000

The Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, has proposed a change to the decision making process of the Stormont Executive.

Robinson's Surrender Pact

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8383699.stm

When applied to the blocked decision of the Education Minister to end academic selection the consequences of Robinson’s folly become apparent. Three parties represented in the current Executive, Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist/Conservative are all opposed to academic selection at 11. If Policing and Justice were devolved it would mean the Alliance Party would join the Executive and add their anti-academic selection position to the mix. Mr Robinson’s DUP could loudly claim that the ending of academic selection at 11 was not their fault and that the decision was a positive example of the ending of “party political point-scoring over good government”.

“I am concerned that the failure of the Executive to take certain decisions is taking a toll on the Executive’s credibility with the public.”

Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Mr Robinson’s use of irony is matched only by the Education Minister’s claims to value equality. Both have now adopted the equality of result or outcome model. A Marxist system which typifies the DUP -Sinn Fein coalition. It is little wonder that parents and pupils have fallen victim to the political mismanagement of the mandatory coalition in order to preserve the greedy self-interests of a failed political system.

Tagged: Alliance Party, Caitriona Ruane, Democratic Unionist Party, Department of Education Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Assembly, Northern Ireland Executive, Peter Robinson., SDLP, Ulster Unionist Party

Education Minister ignores more law in education over Parkhall College, Antrim

paceni — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:46:29 +0000

Caitriona Ruane appears unable to read English or calculate simple maths

http://www.deni.gov.uk/index/85-schools/10-types_of_school-nischools_pg/16-schools-integratedschools_pg/16_schools_-_types_of_school_criteria_pg.htm

A new integrated school must attract 30% of its pupils from the minority community in the area where the school is situated.

Existing schools, transforming to integrated status, must demonstrate the ability to achieve a minimum of 10% of their 1st year intake drawn from the minority tradition (Protestant or Roman Catholic) within the school’s enrolment and the potential to achieve a minimum of 30% in the longer term.

If Antrim’s local unionist representatives, including the Democratic Unionist Party’s Rev William McCrea MP, MLA had any concern for the controlled sector they would have expressed outrage over the expense, method and misinformation surrounding the “transformation” of the last remaining secondary school in Antrim. The Ulster Unionist Party are even more culpable since two councillors, including Antrim’s Lord Mayor, Adrian Watson, sat on the Board of Governors of Parkhall College during the period.

The North Eastern Education & Library Board and Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education senior officials were responsible for the development proposal submitted to the DENI. They must be held to account for their misinformation campaign that resulted in a school gaining transformation status on the basis of 2.2% of pupils coming from the minority community.

Less than 5 pupils will do nicely

Tagged: Antrim Northern Ireland, Antrim Parkhall College, Antrim schools, Caitriona Ruane, DENI, DENI Press Releases, Gordon Topping, Michael Wardlow, Parkhall College Antrim, Parkhall Integrated College Antrim, the northern ireland executive