Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 Ok, I’ve decided to do something slightly different, here, in the form of a blog largely not written by me, but based on two emails I’ve received in recent months on the vexed and often technical issue of data analysis systems and target-setting. This may be overly technical for some non-teacher readers of this blog, but I thought I’d put it up here as I get occasional inquiries about the Fischer Family Trust system in particular, and am interested in the implications of how these systems work in the classroom. What follows are the more-or-less verbatim contents of two emailsRead More →

  Thursday, October 1st You may have noticed that I had a piece in the Guardian’s education section over the summer about an online discussion among history teachers as to which board offered the “easiest” exams. Teachers were debating with each other, over several years, on the schoolhistory.co.uk website, which version of the modern world history GCSE offered the easiest,  most predictable questions. One teacher, who started the debate, talked at length about the benefits of moving from AQA to OCR. He said of OCR’s exams: “The questions are very straightforward and at least 40% easier!” He said that the coursework requirements were also less exacting for OCR,Read More →

  Right, this blog is for a new page I’m setting up on the site which will be concerned with the use of Fischer Family Trust data in schools. This is an area that I’ve been trying to get to grips with over the last year, amid tales from teachers and others which point to concerns about the workings of this data system, which makes estimates of pupils’ future exam performance based on their previous test scores and other information. Many of the underlying issues with the use of FFT data in schools seem to have links with wider concerns about the implications of England’sRead More →