August 2014

James Pembroke is the founder of the school data company, Sig+, and he’s written this very handy article to help Multi Academy Trusts make sense of their data.  

What are the benefits and risks of data collection in MATs?

Due to the nature of MATs, there’s a wide range of expertise that can be utilised to develop effective, common approaches to assessment. Decision makers are more well informed, so they can direct resources to where they’re most needed, and large numbers of pupils mean more reliable, meaningful data. The risk of data collection, though, is that it might lead to a top down, accountability-focused system of assessment that increases workload but doesn’t have much of an impact on learning. So, how can we make sense of all this data, and put it to good use?

It has been ten years since the KS2 test included poetry (cast your minds back to the themed ‘Rain & Shine’ reading booklet in 2008 where pupils were presented two poems related to rain) so were you and your colleagues surprised to open the reading booklet this year to find a poem?

We asked Shareen Mayers to share her thoughts and initial reactions to the 2018 KS2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test…

It's the start of the World Cup! Could this be England's year? You might not be getting your hopes up but the team should at least get to their matches on time, unlike Tess in this latest Comet Street Kids free eBook. 

The dissection (and opinions!) of the 2018 mathematics papers have begun. This blog provides an analysis of the key themes across all three papers.

Bev Forest, a primary education expert specialising in history, shares some of the features she's seen on her school visits which she feels most contribute to an effective learning experience for pupils and support you in developing your history teaching from good to outstanding.

Thanks to Ruth Duckworth, Year 6 Teacher/Writing Lead at Christ Church C of E Primary School, for this really insightful piece full of handy hints and tips for transitioning your Year 5s into Year 6.

The Year 6 SATs are over for another year; writing pieces will soon complete the end of Key Stage 2 assessments and many staff will breathe more easily for a few weeks - until ‘data day’ in early July. So, many of you will be thinking about the next cohort to come into Year 6.