When I look back over my career in the education sector, my sleepless nights have either been people or procurement related. I can’t offer any pearls of wisdom to overcome the people induced insomnia but have come to realise that for school leaders and business management professionals, there is a solution to procurement stress: frameworks.

In an unprecedented era when the pressure on school budgets is unrelenting, frameworks provide the option to invest precious resources elsewhere. We are a public body and are therefore bound by the requirement that our procurements must achieve “the best mix of quality and effectiveness for the least outlay over the period of use of the goods or services bought”. I see our role as adding value to the schools, settings and trusts that choose to work with us by procuring the best-in-class products at the most competitive prices by using our position as an aggregator. In short, we do the extensive legwork, enabling you to invest your time and efforts where it really matters. This means no more stress around the risk of delays, litigation or poor outcomes.

As we approach a new school year, school leaders will need to generate efficiencies to pay the utility bills and to meet the costs of staff pay increases. We all know that most efficiencies have been realised and the reality is that schools will need to do more with less. Having a contract register from which to base future procurement is not going to bridge the gap in budgets resulting from rocketing energy bills and pay awards, but it may enable you to realise some savings by accessing the products you identify as best-fit.

The HFL Education Multi-Supplier MIS Framework is a great example. Our framework enables schools, settings and trusts to procure licenses for Arbor, Bromcom and ScholarPack at up to a 35% discount. We have used our position as an aggregator to drive the best possible deal with these key MIS providers. In addition, schools, settings and trusts can save at least 4 months in procurement time compared to running an open procedure with a fraction of the work and staff time to complete a procurement. Finally, the icing on the cake is that the procurement risk is borne by HFL Education. Schools, settings and trusts can ask HFL Education to call-down on the Framework on their behalf, safe in the knowledge that it is a fully-compliant Public Framework.

Attention to detail is key, when considering options, ensure you are comparing apples with apples.

The inflationary increases that will be applied between contract years is an area of detail often overlooked. Inflation plus a couple of % is a standard clause in many contracts and with inflation running so low for so long, hasn’t been a factor for so many. However, schools, settings and trusts may be looking at a 12% increase in licence costs this year if inflation stays where it is. This is the detail that matters and the that expert organisations will look to secure the best deals for schools, settings and trusts in.  look at inflation between contract years to ensure you are getting the very best deal.

When I started my career in education, procurements needed to be run at Local Authority or school level because be-spoking software to user needs was seen as essential. The world has moved on, and we all now accept that tweaking our processes to adapt to off-the-shelf products is a far more efficient and effective way of operating. The recognition that off-the-shelf is the right path has made the traditional procurement route for licences for software, largely redundant. Why reinvent the wheel when you can leverage better value and save time and risk by choosing a compliant Framework? The market has matured with expert Public Bodies able to offer scale to vendors through national procurements that makes offering great terms easy.

We all recognise just how tough this year will be for school leaders and business management professionals financially. With around 75% of school budgets committed to staffing, realising efficiencies in operating costs is essential. There are inflation-busting deals to be had out there, like the HFL Education MIS Framework. Holding a Contract Register and shopping around for the best Framework deals in good time is one way to stretch your operating cost budget further. Sleepless nights over, stretch don’t stress!

If you are considering changing your MIS and would like to speak with us further about our MIS Framework, please email us at misframework@hfleducation.org or visit HFL Education: Multi-supplier MIS framework.

(Updated for 2022/23 - originally published in 2021/22)

Key Stage 2 SATs return this summer, after a 2-year hiatus, and with them have also returned a steady stream of queries regarding children for whom English is an additional language. The queries tend to fall into these three categories:

• do the children need to take the tests?
• what support can we provide?
• how will it affect our data?

I will address all of these aspects within this blog.

Firstly, though, let’s just define what we mean by ‘EAL’. According to the DfE, “A pupil is recorded as having English as an additional language if she/he is exposed to a language at home that is known or believed to be other than English. It is not a measure of English language proficiency or a good proxy for recent immigration.” In the Spring 2018 census, 36% of EAL learners were assessed as being fluent in English, with a further 25% assessed as competent.

In other words, the ‘EAL’ label covers the complete spectrum, from the fluently multilingual (including fluent in English) to those with no knowledge of the English language as yet. It includes pupils who have lived most or all of their lives in this country and it includes the very recently arrived.

It is worth reminding ourselves, therefore, that many EAL learners will not require any access arrangements to be able to fulfil their potential in the KS2 SATs, whilst others may require significant support.

It is important that the support put in place is matched to the needs of the individual child. There is no one-size-fits-all approach here.

And so to the three areas of frequently asked questions.

Do the children need to take the tests?

If any child is unable to access a test because they are working at too low a standard to be able to score any marks (even with appropriate access arrangements in place) then they should not be entered into the test. You would record this on the test attendance register with the code B.

NB the DfE guidance (section 6.1 of the Assessment & Reporting Arrangements) states that ‘The tests are designed for pupils who … are working at the overall standard of the tests’. This is not to be confused with ‘working at the expected standard’. The language is slightly ambiguous, but what is meant is that if you anticipate that a child would be able to score at least 2 or 3 marks on the test, they should be entered. Only those children who you would not expect to be able to score any marks at all (or perhaps just 1 mark) should be classified as ‘working below the standard of the tests’ (code B). In such circumstances, you are required to submit a teacher assessment, made using either the Pre-Key Stage Standards or (for children with severe SEND, not yet engaged in subject-specific learning) the Engagement Model. (NB it is extremely unlikely that any child for whom the Engagement Model is appropriate would be learning within a mainstream setting.)

Code B would apply to any EAL children for the reading test (and probably also grammar/ punctuation/ spelling) if their level of understanding of the English language is not yet at a stage where they can access the language of these tests.  But it might not apply to maths – if a child’s level of understanding of maths (assessed using their first language) is at an age-appropriate standard, then they are not working below the standard of the test in this subject. They should be entered into the maths test, with appropriate access arrangements where necessary – see below.

There is also the possibility, where a child has very recently arrived in your school and you have not yet been able to access the appropriate language support to be able to ascertain their level of competence in maths, that you don’t enter the child into the tests and record this using code J, which means “Pupils whose performance cannot be established because they have just arrived in school” (see section 6.2 of the Assessment & Reporting Arrangements).

Furthermore, you might have the situation where you have been able to establish that a child is competent in maths when questions are asked in their first language, but you are unable to access any appropriate language support (such as a translator) for the mathematics reasoning papers, meaning they will not able not to access these papers. You would not enter the child in this scenario. This would be recorded using the code U (“Pupils working at the standard of the tests but who are unable to access them”). This would not be ideal though. A better way forward would be for the right support to be put in place to enable the child to take the test, which I go on to explore below.

(A quick aside about not entering children into the tests for any of the above reasons – people sometimes use the word ‘disapply’ in this context. This is not the correct term. There is in fact no such thing as disapplication from the tests, strictly speaking.)

What support can we provide?

As stated above, every case is different and the support provided needs to be the right match for the child’s needs. It should also be ‘normal classroom practice’ for such support to be provided to enable the child to access the curriculum and should never create an unfair advantage.

Please note, the reading test and the grammar, punctuation and spelling test must be conducted in the English language. No translation is permitted, except for directions or instructions that are not part of the test questions.

In the context of the maths test, there are various options that you could put in place, depending on what is most appropriate to the needs to the child and what is normal classroom practice. These could include:

• a translator who orally translates the questions where necessary (this scenario is counted as ‘use of a reader’)
• a translator who prepares a written translation of the questions where necessary
• the child speaks their answer in their first language and the translator writes the answer for them in English - this is counted as ‘use of a scribe’
• the child writes their answer in their first language and the translator provides a written translation – this is counted as ‘use of a transcript’

For more details on any of these options (including what you must notify the STA) see the Key Stage 2 Access Arrangements Guidance.

Adults working with children during the KS2 tests must also adhere to the KS2 Test Administration Guidance. For example, they should take care, if providing a translation of a mathematical word, not to explain the word, as the child’s understanding of the meaning of the mathematical words is part of what is being assessed. Adults should also not read out mathematical symbols.  

Please note, a translator cannot be related to the child for whom they are translating. 

In the case of preparing a written translation, schools are automatically allowed to open the test papers up to one hour before the test will be taken for such purposes as this (subject to appropriate test security). If a translator is likely to need more than that one hour, then apply for early opening of the test papers via the Primary Assessment Gateway. (NB the deadline for these applications is Friday 10th March 2023.)

How will it affect our data?

Well, in the case of attainment data, any child not achieving the Expected Standard will count against you in your percentages, whether they have been entered into the test (and not scored enough marks) or not been entered. (The ‘average scaled score’ reported for your school would be affected though, as this average is based only on those children who achieved a scaled score.)

In terms of the progress data, if the children were not in the country at KS1, they won’t form part of the progress calculation anyway. If they were in the country and have KS1 data, then progress scores will be calculated for them. Where children are working below the standard of the test and Pre-Key Stage Standards are submitted, these are used in the progress calculation. (Scores are allocated to each PKS standard for this purpose: PK6 = 79 points, PK5 = 76 points, and so on, dropping by 3 each time.)

After all tests have taken place, in the following September, there is a process by which Headteachers can apply to remove recently arrived EAL learners from the validated (published) data. This is the DfE’s ‘Tables Checking Exercise’ . This allows you to apply to remove a child from the published data provided that child:

• arrived from overseas and was admitted into an English school for the first time within the final two years of KS2 (i.e. Y5 or Y6); and
• came from a country that does not list English as one of its official languages; and
• has English as an additional language (or doesn’t speak English at all)

The initial (unvalidated) data release in ‘Analyse School Performance’ (ASP) and in the Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR) would include the results of all Year 6 children, but the later (validated) release of ASP and IDSR ought to reflect any changes made in the Tables Checking exercise. 

ASP does of course (in the detailed tables) show the data for ‘Non-mobile’ pupils (i.e. filtering out those pupils who joined the school during Y5 or Y6) - so this can be used to demonstrate the outcomes for the pupils who have been in the school for at least 2 years.  The interactive elements of ASP (and the FFT Aspire tool) also allow for filtering data based on named pupils, so it becomes relatively easy to discover what the school data would look like if particular individual pupils had not joined the cohort. This could be useful, for example, when discussing school performance with governors, as a means to demonstrate the school’s effectiveness with the children who have been on roll the longest. However, it should never be used as a means to excuse poorer outcomes for particular children. Whilst we might want to explore our school data in different hypothetical scenarios, we must always be driven by the desire for every child to achieve the best they possibly can, particularly when those children are vulnerable or facing challenges.

Spring may not be quite sprung yet (or anytime particularly soon), but as we move into this new term, it is a good time for Year 2 and 6 teachers to reflect and take stock of the progress our pupils are making towards their summer statutory assessment goals. That makes it also a good time for Ben and me to cast our mind back to last summer’s moderations and share some of the key observations from successful visits.  

Summer 22 saw us brushing off our moderation teams and getting back out into schools for the first time after the pandemic hiatus. It is always a pleasure to spend time looking at the wonderful journeys that pupils have been on, and last year that was additionally so due to the fantastic work that teachers have been doing in helping pupils get back on track and achieve despite the challenges to their learning over the previous two years. 

Throughout the 2021/22 year, most of the schools we spoke to were predicting that their percentages of pupils achieving the expected and greater depth standards were likely to be lower than pre-pandemic. All the efforts for catch-up and addressing gaps were fantastic and successful, but with so much missed or not secured, there was a limit to what was achievable in a year when covid was still affecting attendance. For Year 2 pupils, the disruption to their Reception and Year 1 had substantial implications across the curriculum as did the big chunk of Key Stage 2 for our Year 6 pupils. At times it felt as though we all needed to channel our inner Stoic and accept what ‘is’ and where we were, rather than wishing for what could or ‘should’ have been in a world of no lockdowns or absences. It came as no surprise then, that when we collated and looked across the Herts data, the impact of the last few years was clear:

We know that we are advised not to make comparisons between 2019 and 2022 data but we can certainly see the difference that lockdown learning had on our pupils securing their key stage knowledge and skills.

Without wanting to sound overly pessimistic, it is probably realistic to say that the situation is not going to magically be better this year, particularly in Key Stage 2. End of key stage assessment assesses entirely that - the whole key stage - and for our Year 6 pupils, there were two years of disruption and absences whose effects can still be seen. In recent Year 6 writing clusters, we noticed that many of the common issues being raised related to curriculum content from Years 3 and 4 and lingering insecurity with Key Stage 1 content ranging from spellings and punctuation to sentence structure. These gaps in knowledge will have an impact on whether pupils will be able to secure all the ‘pupil can’ statements for WTS and EXS, so tracking back and plugging gaps will need to continue being a feature of Year 6 writing lessons for this year.

We have already gravitated towards writing, so let’s continue by considering some of the good practice we saw at both key stages.

Quantity and quality

Making a secure teacher assessment judgement is so much easier when there is a range of writing to go on. Collections where there was plenty of writing across a range of text types where pupils can show specific skills in a few places were a feature of moderations that went well. Where teachers could see the pupil demonstrating the ‘pupil can’ statements (or not) regularly, they could make more accurate assessment judgements for the cohort.

I am not suggesting this is easy. Many teachers have shared how tricky it has been getting pupils to produce sustained or extended writing over the last year or so. The periods of time where pupils were learning remotely and perhaps not writing as much or at length and certainly without the resources that they have in school have had an impact for many on their writing stamina. It could be that focussing more on building pieces over a couple of lessons rather than in long periods then working on extending the writing could be a method, or indeed including some relatively shorter writing opportunities alongside the longer ones so that pupils can still be demonstrating what they remember and know in different contexts without as much pressure on their stamina. A few Key Stage 1 teachers have shared similar approaches of building some ‘free writing’ time into their day (for example, after lunch) where pupils have notebooks and can write about anything they want or respond to prompts. This unstructured, low-stakes context for writing can be a place where stamina is built but also can be a useful additional insight into where pupils are with their writing. Of course, it is also worth remembering that writing across the curriculum can be included in the teacher assessment judgement, so writing in history books or from science lessons can be a way of expanding the quantity and range of writing available.

Independence

It is also important in that range of writing, that the writing can be said to be independent. I will very quickly say here that we are not taking about ‘cold tasks’ or writing that children have produced without any relevant context or teaching or usual classroom resources. This is especially relevant for Key Stage 1 where the Teacher Assessment Framework (TAF) does say ‘The pupil can, after discussion with the teacher:’ for each of the standards.

For accurate teacher assessment we need to see what a pupil can do without over-direction to be able to say that they have secured a writing skill. As we move through the spring term, we could try to reduce the scaffolding or very directive success criteria or feedback/marking and start to give a little more space for pupils to demonstrate what they can do independently. This is especially necessary if the writing scheme used is quite heavily scaffolded. There are a few approaches to writing out there that end up producing very few independent pieces and it would be useful to perhaps step away from the scheme approach and try to build in some more independent writing opportunities for pupils. Another approach that we saw in some schools to ensure that writing was good for demonstrating a pupil’s skills was where a ‘final’ piece of independent writing was done a week or two after the teaching and shared/modelled writes.

Rather than spend longer talking about independence, I will point you in the direction of an old, but still relevant, blog that explores this.

Feedback

As a development on the above section, it’s worth spending a little time talking about feedback. In schools where pupils had produced a good range of independent work, we often saw that pupils were involved in the editing and improvement process without over-direction from teachers. Earlier in the year, of course teachers were likely to be heavily involved in supporting the editing and improvement process (for example, underlining particular misspelled words), but as the year progressed, we could see them stepping back and allowing pupils to demonstrate their skills more independently. This may be done by the teacher taking a more ‘search and destroy’ approach to pupils finding and correcting errors – a dot or ‘sp’/’punc’ in the margin for a section of writing, as an example – whether that be pupils working alone or with peers to improve their writing.  Of course, there is more to editing than just correcting spelling or missing full stops, but this practice was often embedded in a classroom culture of pupils crafting their writing with periods during the writing (mini-plenaries/stop-gaps etc.) or after the writing where pupils can read their work aloud or check for errors to make secretarial or compositional changes to the work.

For Year 2 pupils, in order to achieve the greater depth standard, it is necessary for them to be able to ‘make simple additions, revisions and proof-reading corrections to their own writing’, so not just correcting spellings but also adding to their writing or changing wording to make it better. This ties in nicely with our more general aim to develop our pupils’ metacognitive skills of reviewing/monitoring and developing self-awareness, so hopefully doesn’t feel like it is just something we are doing for the sake of the TAF.

If you are looking to adapt your approach to feedback and how pupils take ownership of their writing, there is another old blog on that here. Marky McMarkface: let’s talk about feedback

Addressing of gaps/pesky habits

As we’ve talked about already, the plague-years have left a mark, and for some of our pupils that mark is that there is curriculum content from earlier years that was not quite secured in the way it would ‘normally’ be and there is then a knock-on effect when pupils are measured against the TAF at the end of key stage.

In the moderations last summer, we had a lot of conversations about how schools had identified and then addressed some of these gaps, misconceptions or ‘bad’ habits that had crept into writing and stayed there. More often than not, it was a juggling act of keeping up with the current year-group curriculum whilst also tracking back to address issues with phonics, or handwriting, or spelling, or sentence construction and so on.

There will remain issues that we will want to address over the year. Are there times when we need to spend a little time exploring the root of a pupil’s tendency and finding that it is a misunderstanding relating to word class or clauses, or perhaps doing a miscue analysis to be able to work systematically through the spelling rules or phonic insecurities to address patterns in spellings. Some of this may be applicable to the whole class, but more often than not, it will be more individualised.

Confidence with TAF inc. qualifiers and what would be a particular weakness

Just a reminder really for teachers to look at the guidance of what Standards and Testing Agency (STA) say about the use of the ‘some’, ‘many’, ‘most’ qualifiers in the TAF. It is really helpful for moderation discussions where there is a consistent understanding of how these would relate to a pupil achieving a ‘pupil can’ statement. As always, the exemplification materials and the collections used for standardisation available through the Primary Assessment Gateway are helpful for illustrating what this looks like in pupil work.

Also worth flagging is how a ‘particular weakness’ may present itself in a pupil’s collection of work. In the preamble to the writing TAF for both Key Stages, the STA outline that at times a particular weakness may mean that particular ‘pupil can’ statements can be discounted to allow for an accurate and appropriate assessment of a pupil. This is for those times where it would be absolutely ridiculous for a pupil to be awarded a lower standard because of one particular tendency or issue but where the rest of their writing is ‘belt and braces’ secure at the higher standard. Of course, this takes professional judgement. If a pupil struggles with coherence, it would be quite the stretch to discount that and say that pupil was meeting the expected standard at Key Stage 1, however, it could be that a child is writing very effectively and ticking everything from the expected standard really securely, but still struggles with some of the spellings of common exception words and can’t be said to be spelling ‘most’ correctly – in this case, the spelling may present a ‘particular weakness’ in their writing and they could still be awarded EXS.

We have yet another old blog that discusses in a little more detail what may be considered a particular weakness. Read A very particular weakness

Moderating in school or at clusters from early in the spring term

I promise this isn’t a shameless plug for our moderation cluster events, but it really was a feature of most of our successful moderations that the class teachers had been involved in moderation throughout the year. This could have been our HFL clusters, but also internally within school or groups of schools that work together. It is just so very helpful, especially in a smaller school where we have less opportunity to look at how another class is doing, to read other Year 2 or 6 pupils’ work and speak to their teachers to standardise the judgements.

Key Stage 1 maths

Moving now to looking specifically at Key Stage 1, there were also some observations that came up for maths.

The maths curriculum is jam-packed.  Consequently, the coverage and security required for the TAF meant that it was quite a struggle for teachers to move through everything needed as well as having to spend a lot of time in the autumn term plugging gaps and tracking back to address issues that had arisen from the covid times. Hopefully that is less of an issue this year for our current Year 2s but getting everything covered in time for the end of June statutory assessment deadline is always a challenge.

I never like the idea of the TAF being a tail that wags the dog, but it is sensible to cross-reference teaching sequences with the ‘pupil can’ statements to check coverage and what needs to go where. The spring term is a good time to audit if there are any things that look like they may be an issue and then rejigging where possible to give pupils a chance to learn and then apply their knowledge.

In schools where moderations went really well, they had done this and really thought about how they could gather independent application evidence throughout the year. Sometimes, the gathering of independent application was in the form of starters or plenaries that were retrieval practice of content from previous weeks or months, or in the form of a daily practice activity that again, allowed pupils to demonstrate their security outside of direct teaching. As a small caveat to this, if these activities are in an early morning maths session or similar, please do keep an eye on those pupils who may often be late and miss these. It is always frustrating where regular absence means a lack of retrieval practice and thus, evidence, for a pupil.

Collecting evidence can be low impact on teaching. What I mean by that is that it doesn’t necessarily call for teachers to be completing special TAF tests for maths or similar, but rather, that through the sort of day-to-day/regular formative/low stakes assessment , you can gather quite a lot of quality independent evidence throughout the year. That could be via morning maths, fluency sessions, integrated cross-topic activities or regular retrieval practice (the last lesson/last month/last term type activities we often talk about for formative assessment), hinge questions and so on.

As always, please do get in touch if you have any questions regarding assessment: hfl.assessment@hfleducation.org