The predictive value of GCSEs and AS-levels: what works for university entrance?

Chris Husbands

Key Stage 4 and 5 qualifications are again at the centre of a controversy: which are most useful for fair university admissions – GCSEs or AS-levels? This matters because the DfE has announced that AS-levels are to become a standalone qualification, rather than the first half of pupils’ A-level results. The DfE argues that decoupling the AS in this way will put an end to time-consuming assessment in Year 12 that takes time away from teaching and learning. It is relaxed about the change, but some universities – most notably Cambridge University – beg to differ.

Cambridge has calculated that apart from the case of Mathematics, a pupil’s performance at AS-level provides a “sound to verging on excellent” indicator of Tripos (BA degree) potential across all its major subjects. STEP, an advanced Mathematics assessment, provided a better indicator in Maths. GCSEs, by contrast, were found to be less effective: around 10% of Cambridge entrants who apply with A-levels present very strong AS performance despite less impressive GCSE performance, and around three-quarters of this group are from state schools and colleges. On that basis, Cambridge claims that the loss of AS-levels will impact on student choice, flexibility and the opportunity for all pupils to apply to university with confidence.

The DfE did its own number crunching. It argued that GCSEs were accurate predictors of university outcomes in 69.5% of cases, and knowing both GCSE and AS results improved the accuracy of the prediction only slightly – to 70.1%. On this basis, it concluded that the added value of AS results for university admissions was very low. What should we make of this disparity, which was analysed in more detail by FullFact?

The two calculations are based on very different methodologies. Cambridge’s sums were based on just the students who were successful in its admissions process – a select group, whilst the DfE’s data drew on a much larger dataset – some 88,000 students. But there were also important differences in the granularity used by Cambridge and the DfE. As input data, the DfE used overall grades (A, B C, etc) secured in GCSE and AS examinations, whereas Cambridge used the much finer grained data of UMS scores on AS units. Universities routinely receive UMS scores, though few in practice make use of them. For outcome data, the DfE again used an overall score – looking at whether students in the global dataset secured a 2:1 or above in 2011, whereas Cambridge used the results on Part I Tripos examinations between 2006 and 2009. Moreover, the DfE used a single score across all subjects to see whether GCSE and AS results overall were good predictors in general, whereas Cambridge used a comparison of GCSE/AS and Tripos scores on a subject-by-subject basis.

This is complex stuff. Obviously, we all want policy to be informed by the most robust analysis possible; analysis that is as fine-grained as possible, makes full use of available records and takes account of important variables such as, in this instance, subject and institutional differences. But that is still a major challenge for policy and practice. What is also at stake is qualifications policy, which needs to serve stakeholders beyond the higher education sector.

Perhaps the elephant in the room is the continuing lack of real transparency regarding university admissions. As the debate between Cambridge and the DfE rumbled on, the Higher Education Policy Institute annual conference was hearing about just how in the dark schools feel when it comes to the admissions process – just which types of information do tutors take notice of and prioritise? Why such apparent differences across institutions? Tutors may use prior attainment at Key Stage 4 and/or 5; they may use the personal statement; they may use academic and other references; some will interview candidates and run other aptitude tests. But few universities state publicly the significance they attach to each source of information. If we had more robust data on the predictive value of different factors – at national level – that might help to pave the way for greater consistency and transparency in admissions, and help pupils in choosing which qualifications are right for them.

Schools play a critical role in helping young people find their sense of place

Kathryn Riley

Our young people inhabit a planet of increasing diversity and complexity. In a world of ongoing transformation, they need to find their place. Place is a powerful notion: the place where I am from, the place where I live, the place where I would like to be. Place is about being an insider or an outsider. Schools have a critical role to play in helping – or hindering – young people to find their sense of place.

Last week, I met with young people from four London schools: Mulberry School for Girls, St. Paul’s Way Trust School, Central Foundation Girls’ School in Tower Hamlets and the Ursuline School, Wimbledon. I wanted to know what they thought about my new book Leadership of Place: Stories from the US, UK & South Africa (K. Riley, 2013: Bloomsbury).

My book looks at how a school’s location, and the stories of the individual students in the school community, affects the way heads and teachers think about their work. At the heart of the book are three locality studies: Brooklyn, New York, London’s East End and Nkonkobe in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Wherever I went I asked young people the same two questions: “What’s it like living around here?” and “What’s it like being in this school?”

• For children at “Downtown School” in Brooklyn, New York, the neighbourhood is “a world of highways, underpasses and overpasses”. The school building is industrial and unwelcoming; yet, for many, “school becomes the only stable place they know”, the principal told me.
• Staff at “Annie Besant” school in Tower Hamlets said they were shocked at the depth of poverty and overcrowding their students lived in, but the girls, mainly of Bengali origin, did not think they were deprived.
• In South Africa’s Eastern Cape, where schools may lack running water and electricity, one boy told me: “The good thing about this place is being loyal and the most important thing is love. It’s a good family, good friends, education, sport… And there are bad things that don’t make me feel good… drugs alcohol, HIV, unemployment.”

The young people I met with in London told me more about the complexities of life in the city. One young woman summed up the importance of school as a place for her in the following terms: “You have to be who you are in school, otherwise how are you going to be able to deal with the difficult things that come your way?”

They spoke about their leadership. They discussed the legacy they hoped to leave for other young people when they left school.

They certainly challenged the view of old Etonian MP, Jesse Norman, a newly appointed political adviser to David Cameron, that Eton is one of the few schools where students “think that there’s the possibility of making change through their own actions” (Observer, 28th April, 2013).

Perhaps Mr Norman might like to visit one of these London schools?

Professor Kathryn Riley, London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education London.

Is the new SPaG test for 11 year olds the best way to improve grammar, punctuation and spelling?

Julia Douëtil

Grammar, punctuation and spelling matter! Whether we like it or not, they influence the way we are perceived in speech and writing. Actor Alexander Armstrong complained recently of unreasonable prejudice against people with posh accents and he is right, we shouldn’t judge people by the way they sound. But we do. And if Mr Armstrong thinks he suffers prejudice, it is nothing compared to the negative assumptions made about a person whose speech is peppered with poor grammar or whose writing is littered with spelling mistakes. Children who do not learn to present themselves well in speech and writing will be severely disadvantaged when applying for university or for jobs.

As I write I am acutely conscious that representatives of Pedants Are We will scan this piece for any hint of an error in grammar, punctuation or spelling that will enable them to dismiss my entire argument as the work of an ignoramus. So I can understand the imperative to ensure that our children become skilled in the use of grammar, punctuation and spelling. But is the new SPaG test the best way to achieve that?

My ears pricked up this week listening to the wonderful Michael Morpurgo talking about his early delight in the stories read to him by his mother. He then described falling among teachers who “turned stories into trials”. “Everything became a test, whether it was punctuation, spelling, handwriting or learning a poem, and you either succeeded or you failed.” The joy and magic of stories vanished, to be replaced by fear. “Words and stories became a threat and I turned my back on them.”

The model SPaG test presented a checklist of all our favourite pitfalls in written English. It is designed to catch children out, and it will be interesting to see the extent to which it disadvantages children learning English as a second language and those with a robust regional dialect. Practice SPaG tests, even a SPaG boot camp, have spread like a virus. Schools have spent weeks preparing their children for this high stakes assessment. Where is the joy, the magic, in that?

Research exploring the most effective teachers of English* found that those who taught the rules of grammar and punctuation in a meaningful context achieved the best results for children. Understanding how this language structure or that punctuation helped the writer to advance their ideas was more effective than teaching rules in isolation. Isn’t that the point, that knowing the rules is only half the job? It’s knowing how to use them (and when to break them) that really matters.

Both grammar and spelling change, perhaps more rapidly than we may imagine. What is beyond the pale today may be mainstream tomorrow and vice versa. The split infinitive, once considered the hallmark of a poor education, is now widely accepted; no doubt influenced by the determination of Star Trek to boldly go where none had gone before. The influence of the internet has made American spelling close to ubiquitous. I wonder if assessment in extended text, writing for a purpose, would be a more effective means of enabling children to demonstrate their ability to use grammar, punctuation and spelling in ways which are accurate, dynamic and in tune with modern usage?

* Wray D.; Medwell J.; Fox R.; Poulson L., (2000), The Teaching Practices of Effective Teachers of Literacy, Educational Review, Vol 52, No 1, 1, pp. 75-84(10)

Julia Douëtil is Head of the European Centre for Reading Recovery at the Institute of Education.

What’s in an A-level score? The new floor targets for post 16

Chris Husbands

The government is currently looking long and hard at the school accountability framework. In February, it published a thoughtful consultation document on Key Stage 4 accountability, and a similar document on Key Stage 2 is expected shortly: the headline performance measures for schools have always been the Key Stage 2 expectations for primary schools and the Key Stage 4 measures for secondary schools: the focus on Level 4 performance (at Key Stage 2) and threshold GCSE performance at grades C and above (at Key Stage 4) have simultaneously focused minds and energy whilst at the same time driving some behaviours in schools which mean that resource and effort is focused on marginal performance at critical boundaries. Nonetheless, the focus on floor targets has been a powerful driver for improved performance, especially in English and Mathematics.

With little fanfare, the government has now published minimum performance standards for ‘Key Stage 5’ – that is, for 16-19 providers. The performance standards are long overdue: there is too much poor and often unviable provision at 16-19, and comparatively little sustained scrutiny of performance across the sector. The government is right to develop common expectations covering schools and colleges, and to try to develop indicators which assess performance in A-Levels and other academic and vocational qualifications taken at level 3. But at the same time that it is consulting intelligently about key stage 4 accountability, it appears to have developed indicators which will drive some perverse behaviours at key stage 5. The KS5 minimum standard will describe a school sixth form or college as underperforming if its results show that fewer than 40 per cent of students achieve an average point score per entry in academic or vocational qualifications equal to the fifth percentile of providers nationally.

The key flaw is simple, but technical. The current KS5 performance tables present two sets of data on institutions’ achievement: an average points score per student, and an average points score per entry. The points score is derived from the national points tariff – 300 points for an A* at A-level, 270 for an A, 240 for a B and so on, and a parallel tariff for approved vocational qualifications. However, the KS5 minimum standard is set at an average points score per entry, not per student. The perverse incentives can be easily illustrated: imagine a student predicted to score CCE at A-level. She has an average points score per entry of 190 (570/3). But if the school were to counsel her to drop the subject in which she is predicted an E, her average score per entry rises to 210: the measure has shifted, but the performance of the school or college has not. In this instance, it’s not clear that the interests of the student (narrowing her curriculum) are best served by the tactic which is in the best interests of the institution. Of course, this is based on a single case, but some institutions are managing very small cohorts: almost 600 institutions have cohorts of less than 125 students. Given the indicator – the points score secured by fewer than 40% – institutional behaviour of this sort could make a difference.

The relationship between the average points score per student and the average points score per entry is strong: that is, schools and colleges which have high average points score tend also to have a high average score per entry. The graph sets out the relationship based on A-level scores in 2012, with the red line indicating the lowest quintile of institutions. This is partly a consequence of a strongly selective post-16 structure in which some institutions set relatively high entry requirements at GCSE – and note that the DFE KS5 floor target is a norm-referenced measure against the performance of the sector as a whole, rather than a progress measure from 16, for which the data does exist. But the relationship is not absolute, and is weakest in the lowest quintile of performers, again suggesting considerable scope for institutional response to perceived signals in the accountability regime.

Relationship between average A-level score per entry and average A-level score per student, 2012:

It would be relatively easy to replace the planned per entry indicator with a per student indicator. As the graph indicates, this would be neutral for most institutions, but it would send important signals to those institutions that may be at risk of receiving a notice to improve: it is students who matter.

The health benefits of live music on premature babies

Professor Graham Welch

We all enjoy music.  We know that very young children respond to music.  We even know that babies in the womb can respond to musical stimuli.   But the latest research gives an important twist on what we already know.   Music matters,  but  live music seems to have a positive effect on premature babies and the bonding experience between newborns and their parents. The research was reported in the journal Pediatrics (DOI: 10.1542/peds.2012-1367) following a two-year study of 272 premature babies across 11 hospitals in New York.

What proved particularly effective was the active participation of parents in music making, either through singing, or playing simple rhythmic and sonic instruments, which positively influenced cardiac and respiratory function of the participant babies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).

The study was carefully designed to ensure that by using appropriate live music activities, the babies’ immature sensory modalities, such as hearing and vision, were not overstimulated, as they might perhaps have been with recorded music. Having a live music focus also allowed the parents to interact better with their babies, as they were able to match the rhythmic patterns they played to their baby’s breathing. This in turn encouraged parent-child bonding and improved parents’ observational skills of their newborns’ development.

The musical elements of rhythm, timbre and vocal tone were essential ingredients and supported by a team of trained music therapists, the parents developed their own self-awareness of how music could be consciously manipulated and entrained to the infants’ physical conditions. The outcomes in this study were that both parents and babies were reported to be more self-reliant.

Overall, this research can be seen as part of an increasing worldwide interest in the potential power and benefits of musical engagement and there is expanding evidence around the physical, psychological and social advantages of music.

The study was also an important reminder that even where adults had previous negative experiences of music, i.e. they considered themselves to be ‘bad singers’; with the support of expert professionals, they were able to see the power of their vocal utterances and instrument playing on their children.

Given that we experience sound, including music, pre-birth from the final trimester in our mother’s womb, it makes sense to engage with music to support other aspects of development, including health. Music and medicine is a growing field and there have been several recent IOE health-focused studies, which illustrate music’s power across the lifespan. These include evidence of music’s social and emotional benefits for seriously ill children in an Italian oncology ward, and the health benefits of a specially-designed musical support programme for older people in care contexts in the North of England.

Music is a birth right, central to our humanity and the human condition, and should not be treated as marginal within our educational systems lest we miss the opportunity to maximise its potential for improving lives, whether it be premature babies or older people (such as me!).

Professor Graham Welch is Chair of Music Education at the Institute of Education. His areas of interest include: musical development and music education across the lifespan, teacher education, the psychology of music, singing and voice science, music in special education and disability and the wider benefits of music.

Is the promotion of mutual respect and tolerance incompatible with the faith ethos of some schools?

Jonny Scaramanga

The Government has repeatedly affirmed its support for faith schools and parents’ right to pass on their religious beliefs. At the same time, standards for independent schools, announced last year, require the promotion of “mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”. Has the government considered cases where the promotion of respect and tolerance is incompatible with the school’s faith ethos?

Media reports have emphasised extremism in Muslim schools, but my research indicates that some evangelical Christian schools are also preaching intolerance. I am researching the approximately 50 Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) schools in the UK. Belief in the eternal damnation of unbelievers is part of ACE’s statement of faith.

In cases like this, where religion makes exclusive truth claims, other beliefs are necessarily seen as inferior. Evangelical Christianity views other religions as at best ‘man-made’ – in contrast to evangelicalism’s God-made Truth – and at worst inspired by Satan. A typical evangelical response to accusations of intolerance is the bewildered defensiveness of Josh McDowell’s The New Tolerance: How a cultural movement threatens to destroy you, your faith, and your children. For McDowell, beliefs and moralities other than his own are wrong. To respect them is to suppress his religious freedom.

ACE schools select on the basis of the parents’ faith, and the environment minimises other cultural influences. This idea of protection from ‘harmful’ outsiders is crucial to its educational philosophy. Other cultures are simply alien to ACE students. Although not intolerant in itself, this risks ‘othering’ different religions. A conscious effort to understand other viewpoints would be required – an effort ACE schools seem unlikely to make.

The schools point to Ofsted reports which rate them as good or outstanding for spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development, but the pedagogy of these schools makes such evaluation difficult for inspectors. Students work in silence at individually-partitioned desks. They complete a series of workbooks (PACEs). There are hundreds of these – 144 in each core subject, plus a labyrinth of electives – and Ofsted will see only the ones students happen to use at the time of inspection. Even then, a class of 20 children, each working on at least five PACEs (typically of 40 pages), will be far more than one inspector can examine.

I was a student at an ACE school in the 1990s. My PACEs were vitriolic about Catholics, Muslims, and ‘liberals’ of all stripes. I have recently purchased the latest editions of many PACEs and found that they remain critical of all outside their own religious tradition.

The strongest attacks occur in Basic New Testament Church History, an 11th grade elective which distinguishes between ‘true Christians’ and others.

Liberalism and Islam are two targets: Muslims are ‘infidels’, while liberal Christians are not ‘saved’.

“Liberalism is most illiberal in that liberals are liberal only to their (and other) unbelieving doctrines. If you believe in the Word of God, you will find out how “liberally” you will be treated! Liberalism is to Christianity what the watermelon rind is to the watermelon: an outer shell but with no fruit inside.”

“Mohammed’s religion would be strongly monotheistic, anti-idolatrous, but false… Fanatical military advance, booty, polygamy: all made Islam attractive (to men only; women were and still are repressed).”

The ‘evil deeds’ and ‘false doctrines’ of the Catholic church are repeatedly emphasised in this and other ACE courses:

“One of the proofs that the papacy was not of God is the dreadful condition of the papacy… Between 880 and 1050, some of the Popes were so evil that one era was called the Pornocracy, “the rule of harlots.” Lewd women actually controlled the papacy through their influence… The whole era was so unedifying that one need not sully his mind with details.”

In English, students study Jonathan Edward’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, which teaches that God “abhors” sinners, and “you are ten thousand Times so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful and venomous Serpent is in ours”.

If this is how their God views non-Christians, what position are the students likely to take?

It seems unlikely that schools using such materials encourage mutual respect and tolerance. The government should think seriously about whether it values faith or tolerance more highly.

Jonny Scaramanga is a Doctoral Student in the Faculty of Children and Learning at the IOE. He is researching Accelerated Christian Education through interviews with former students, critical discourse analysis of curriculum materials, and autoethnography. He is currently working on a book about life as a fundamentalist.

Thatcher’s education legacy

Chris Husbands

She established more comprehensive schools than any other secretary of state for education. She raised the school leaving age.  She set up the Bullock Committee which produced a ground-breaking report on language and learning still held in awe by teachers of English.  She accepted the James Report on teacher training and in-service education recomend that teachers should be released for in-service training for periods equivalent to one term in every 7 years of service. Her most substantial White Paper -  Education, A Framework for Expansion -  envisaged that within ten years “nursery education should become available without charge to those children of three and four whose parents wish them to benefit from it” , that the number of teachers in schools would increase by 10% above the number required to maintain existing class size.  She was given a standing ovation at a National Unions of Teachers conference.  She set up the commission which produced the  Warnock Report on special educational needs, and the legislation based on the report introduced the concept of statementing to secure appropriate provision for children with additional learning needs.  Her government funded the most lavish programme of technical and vocational curriculum development the country had ever seen.

She did not introduce local financial management of schools – that had been done by local authorities such as Solihull – but the 1986 Education Act extended financial management to all schools. She did not introduce parental choice – which still does not exist as a legal right in England – but the 1981 Education Act gave parents the right to express a preference on which school their children should go to. She introduced the first statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum England had seen.  Her 1988 Education Act introducing this national curriculum was, at the time, the largest single piece of legislation Parliament had enacted, though she subsequently regretted the excessive detail the act had introduced. She introduced national testing at 7, 14, 11 and 16.  The ‘City Technology Colleges’ introduced in 1988 prefigured City Academies;   ‘grant maintained schools’ – for all practical purposes revised as converter academies in 2010 – were harbingers of autonomous schools. She abolished tenure for university academics. For many years she was nicknamed ‘milk snatcher’ for the 1972 decision to remove free school milk for children over  the age of 7.

This was the education legacy of Margaret Thatcher. As an expansionist secretary of state for education in the Heath government of the 1970s and as a dominating Prime Ministerial figure in the 1980s she straddled two quite different eras in educational politics:  the period of confident expansion and investment which preceded the economic crisis of 1976, and the period of painful adjustment to financial realities of the 1980s.   Her legacy shapes education:  universal nursery education, prefigured in the 1973 White Paper is now seen as a cornerstone of social policy. The education participation age raised in 1973 is now being raised again.  No British government will ever abandon the idea of a National Curriculum, nor will local financial management ever be rolled back. Her legacy defines the education world which we all operate in and it was not substantially changed by John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron nor any of the ten secretaries of state for education who have held office in the twenty four years since she left Downing Street.

Her legacy remains divisive: divisive between those who see competition, market forces and the accompanying accountabilities  as drivers of higher efficiency, improved performance and greater transparency,  and those who see them as corrosive of collaboration, community and professional integrity. But however divisive the debates remain, the 1973 White Paper and the rather different 1986 and 1988 Education Acts continue to shape the debate about education. It was an earlier Conservative minister for education, David Eccles, who in 1960 spoke of the curriculum as a ‘secret garden’ into which politicians should not venture.   Margaret Thatcher, as secretary of state and as Prime Minister tore down the walls of the secret garden – well, comprehensively.