Ed Balls on GMTV

He looked to me like someone making a play for the big job!

DCFS Conference

I was fortunate enough to make the DCFS organised conference on 14-19 in early June.

Some key highlights that I noted .

An ask the audience straw poll at the beginning of the day:

How prepared do you feel about: Diplomas Functional Skills FLT

Very confident 8% 10% 11%

Quite confident 51% 45% 27%

Not that confident 31% 38% 43%

Not at all confident 10% 8% 19%

Targeting

Diplomas are badly targeted - By saying it's for everyone, the message that it's more right for some groups is sadly weakened. DCFS were encouraged to make it clear who the target students were.

Students love them

They like Functional Skills much more than GCSE. They like the practical aspects of the Diplomas. They like the fact they move around - although this is itself is a serious problem for organisations. Retention on the Diplomas is excellent.

Conflict at institution level

There are many many conflicts.

Students movement, difficult to teach, harder to pass, cultural differences between schools and colleges, competition for funding between institutions, scared to put students in who may fail.

One final point. They did make a lot of the fact that by having regional events, we could reduce our carbon footprint. But at the same time I counted a dozen support staff at each regional event - effectively three times the normal number required. Must have cost a fortune to put on and also cost a lot of CO2 putting all those extra people up in the Hilton each night.

Sorry for the break in service - back again now

A few things have conspired to stop me updating my blog.

I had a holiday!

Life at guroo is extremely busy

The www.functionalskills.org forum has been established and this has taken up a fair bit of time.

Back again now though.

Jonathan

Hard to engage kids

Yet another report this week highlighting the difference in achievement between those who have a hard start in life and those who don't.

Looked after children and those who move around a lot do so much more badly at school.  I've mentioned this before but there should be no reason why this is the case, but it is.

I do believe the tightly structured curriculum and the focus on teaching to the test means these groups of children suffer when it comes to exams.  

Lets just hope that the more practical curriculum that will come about with functional skills and, at least for these groups, the introduction of the Foundation Learning Tier will help them.  It's really about time we move away from focusing the majority of the best resources on the borderline and started to address the issues of learning rather than passing exams.   

Consistency is needed

The Government looks to be in trouble and that means there is likely to be some change.  It's a real shame because during this period of economic uncertainty, the role of education is of primary importance in providing not only a home for young people who can't find an alternative but opportunity for all those who find themselves out of a job.

Now really isn't the time to change Education Ministers again.  A new minister will want new top priority policies and will only have maybe 9 months to have an impact before parliament breaks up for the election.  In a company it wouldn't happen, it shouldn't in politics.  Education is more important than that!

The Magic Bullet?

I've been reading about magic bullets this week.  

• Feed kids the right food to make their brain work.
  
• Re-educate the way they think
  
• Keep repeating year 6 until they can read and write
  
• Have more assessments (and indeed other reports suggest less assessments).
  
• Introduce new performance tables, or do away with all performance tables.
  

Bottom line is there is no magic bullet but I do have a little story that I hope is both relevant and shows that things can change.  I have a good friend who fosters.  Their last charge was a teenager who was "off the rails", but just under a year later that very same person attends classes regularly, is succeeding in education, treats others with respect, and has a future.  

I wish I could say how or why they managed to make progress, but I can't, I suspect they can't can't say either.  Perhaps it's just the whole package together that's the basis of a magic bullet?

  

£300K a year job in DCFS?

There's a tender out at the moment  from Chief Adviser for School Standards.

Two experts contracting for up to 220 days to provide advice on English and Maths at primary.

Contract value is £600,000

Correct me if I'm wrong, does that mean two full time  jobs for 1 year that DCFS is willing to paya salary of £300,000?

If you're interested the email of the person managing the tender is hackman.ps@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk 

Good luck!