Just a Little Something, Episode 8 - Part 2

This is a series which covers some of the things that leaders of independent schools sometimes overlook, omit, misunderstand, or fail to address when it comes to meeting the all-important Independent School Standards.

This will be last episode for a while. I started off picking standards to cover at random. Then using published inspection statistics I started covering the standards that most schools fail to meet – in order from 34 (1) (b), 34 (1)(a), 2(1)(a), 3 (a) and today we will finish looking at 3(d). The reason I am stopping, in case you are wondering is because I have covered the standards that most schools find challenging. I’ll explain – according to the data available at the time I started – which was based on the most recent inspections of 1061 schools 136 had failed to meet standard 34 (1)(b), 131 had failed to meet 34 (1)(a), and so on, guess how many failed to meet 3(d)? Only 58. Out of 1061schools! If I keep going down the list I cannot continue to claim that these are the standards that most school find challenging, can I? So for now, 3(d) will be the last one – unless someone makes a special request.

I have to say independent schools are getting better at meeting the standards – I even posted about it a while ago.

So now, before we begin, as always: a bit of advice

• Please find time to read The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 (Make sure that you are looking at the “latest available (revised)”version. The date of the last revision was 19 August 2024

• Also the DfE’s Independent School Standards: Guidance for Independent Schools

And to borrow the DfE’s disclaimer from the latter document what I share with you here: is not purported to be definitive guidance on the meaning of the standards themselves, only a court can give that.

In the last episode we began looking at 3(d).

3. The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that the teaching at the school—(d) "shows a good understanding of the aptitudes, needs and prior attainments of the pupils, and ensures that these are taken into account in the planning of lessons;”

We focused on the needs in the last episode and today we will focus on the aptitudes and prior attainments.

Here are some examples of why schools have failed to meet the standards. Again, these are extracted from their Ofsted inspection reports:

“The school does not make sure that teachers know pupils’ starting points and what gaps exist in their knowledge. This limits how well teachers can support pupils to build on their prior knowledge.”

“… at a subject level, the essential knowledge that pupils should learn, and the order in which they learn it, is not matched as well as it should be to pupils’ individual … starting points. This limits how well teachers can address gaps in pupils’ knowledge”

“…. The school does not make effective use of assessment strategies to check pupils’ knowledge and understanding. Some pupils have gaps and misconceptions in their learning that are not addressed.”

“Furthermore, the school does not use assessment strategies well enough to shape teaching around pupils’ misconceptions. Some pupils have gaps in their knowledge. They struggle to make sense of new learning.”

This one seems straight forward doesn’t it? Apart from the impact of COVID, our sector - and by that I mean non-association independent schools - is one in which gaps in in knowledge have always been a significant issue to contend with. The majority of our schools cater for pupils who have not fared well in mainstream – some who have been excluded from many schools, others who have been out of education entirely and for significant periods of time. So why would we not capture pupils starting points?

Do we not have the tools? Are we struggling to find one that works well for our pupils? Talk to other schools, schools similar to yours. What do they use? GL Assessment? BKSB? BSquared? NCFE? How about reading including reading age? What works for others? Read, Write, Inc, Little Wandle, something else? How about starting points in other subjects that are not typically included in the big tools? Again look outward – talk to others in the sector. There are baseline assessments for other subjects – Geography, Science

And then once starting points are established ensure that this information is made available to teachers (if they haven’t been involved in the assessments). The format can be pupil profiles, pupil folders on a shared drive, others schools have class profiles – just have a consistent way to ensure that teachers can access this information and use it in their planning to ensure that they can adapt learning to meet the various levels of capability, establish which areas to focus on first and identify which pupils might need additional support or interventions.

We can go ahead and talk about how we can use formative assessment to monitor learning, check pupils understanding, address misconceptions, provide feedback and so on but then I would feel like I am preaching to the choir. As illustrated by the inspection feedback, the main reason standard 3(d) is not being met (and here I am talking about just the aptitudes and prior learning) is that pupils starting points, gaps in knowledge are not being captured or if they are they are not then being used to plan learning. Also. that formative assessment is ineffective.

I hope this episode has been useful. I hope this series has been useful.

Before I sign off, please know that I am happy to jump back in to cover any standard of your choice if you give me a shout in the comments or a direct message. Thanks.