The Department for Education has moved (or totally removed) the assessment goalposts, leaving teachers to design their own. This presentation encourages teachers to take up some new opportunities- and also offers some advice on how to use formative assessment to drive up achievement.

1. Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy
from Reception Onwards
Colin Harrison
University of Nottingham

3. "I am not moving
anything – the badgers
are moving the goalposts.
You are dealing with a
wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather,
disease and breeding
patterns."
Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary, 9 October 2013

4. "I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and
accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for
improved literacy and numeracy levels

5. National Assessment - Rule Number One:
•All goalposts must be moved on
a regular basis
"I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and
accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for
improved literacy and numeracy levels

6. • “PISA tests: UK stagnates” (BBC, Dec 2013)
• “In relation to other countries, the UK has actually slipped ” (Daily
Telegraph, 3 Dec 2013)
”But why?- do we actually
NEED national tests?
… and how are we REALLY
doing in international
comparisons such as PISA?"
How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and
accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for
improved literacy and numeracy levels

7. • “PISA tests: UK stagnates” (BBC, Dec 2013)
• “In relation to other countries, the UK has actually slipped ”
”By the way- do we actually
NEED national tests?
… and how are we REALLY
doing in international
comparisons such as PISA?"
How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and
accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for
improved literacy and numeracy levels

8. • “PISA tests: UK stagnates” (BBC, Dec 2013)
• “In relation to other countries, the UK has actually slipped ”
• The UK score actually went up from 494 to 499 (which would have put
us up from 26th
to 19th
in 2009)
• The 2013 UK improvement was greater than that of Australia, USA,
Finland, Sweden (but below that of China, Taiwan, South Korea…)
”By the way- do we actually
NEED national tests?
… and how are we REALLY
doing in international
comparisons such as PISA?"
How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and
accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for
improved literacy and numeracy levels

9. • All goalposts to be scrapped in September 2015
• Schools to design their own goalposts
• £10,000 prize for best design
• But all goals will have to be smaller than before
• And all schools will need to remember what the old goalposts were like,
even though they’re using the new ones
• From 2016, at KS1, schools can choose to play with pretend goalposts
"I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
How changes to the primary curriculum, assessment and
accountability frameworks have re-emphasised the need for
improved literacy and numeracy levels

10. • Your school will be above ‘floor standard’ at KS2 if your pupils make
‘sufficient progress’ in achieving goals in reading, writing and maths
• Not every school will make ‘sufficient progress’ – 15% will fail
• Schools to use standardized goalposts for reading and maths, but may
design their own goalposts for writing and science
• KS1 Reading test- the football match is 30 mins each way, but the teacher is
the ref and can add extra time– might include poems, stories, non-fiction,
and will test comprehension as well as vocabulary
• KS1 GAPS test: written grammar, punctuation, spelling
"I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
Achieving the new floor standard by securing requisite levels of
reading, writing and mathematics at all levels of primary phase

11. "I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
Developing strategies to improve performance in English and
mathematics: what does research tell us?
• Good formative assessment procedures will be vital (record once/term?)
• Teachers will have space to integrate teaching, learning and assessment
• In ‘schools that beat the odds’ the CIERA School Change Project: there was:
 Excellent record-keeping on every child in all subjects
 ‘Intolerance of stasis’
 ‘Intense small-group instruction’ for the weakest (CIERA, 2002)
• So if levels make sense to you and your colleagues- use them, but with
detailed level descriptors rather than simple “She’s a 3c”
• Work to make the children confident in self- and peer-assessment
• Children blossom when they believe they’re improving (and vice versa….)

12. "I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
Ensuring all pupils have attained the necessary levels in literacy
and numeracy to be secondary ready
• Not easy: the size of the goalposts will not be determined until after
children have taken the new KS2 tests in 2016
• The size of the goalposts will then be adjusted to ensure that an
appropriate number of schools do not meet the the ‘floor standard’
• One way of maximizing a school’s value-added score at KS2 will be to
make sure that the KS1 scores from which the value-added score is
calculated are as low as possible

13. Ensuring all pupils have attained the necessary levels in literacy
and numeracy to be secondary ready
• Not easy: the size of the goalposts will not be determined until after
children have taken the new KS2 tests in 2016
• The size of the goalposts will then be adjusted to ensure that an
appropriate number of schools do not meet the the ‘floor standard’
• One way of maximizing a school’s value-added score at KS2 will be to
make sure that the KS1 scores from which the value-added score is
calculated are as low as possible
No extra
time!!!!!

14. "I am not moving anything –
the badgers are moving the
goalposts. You are dealing with
a wild animal, subject to the
vagaries of weather, disease
and breeding patterns."
Embedding literacy and numeracy skills into all lessons across the
primary school
• The good news: Most good teachers are skilled in this area already.
However:
• The new challenge will be making use of technology to support in-school
and out-of-school learning at primary level- and then linking this to
assessment and record-keeping
• New cross-curricular approaches to problem-solving in maths, humanities
and science, and group work for writing, using new technologies can
bring greater engagement and increased learning
• Critical Internet Literacy will become a core subject by 2020

15. The take-home
message:
• Testing does not raise standards: it’s good teaching
that raises standards
• What we need to do is to ensure that teacher-led
formative assessment and student-led self-assessment
become central to that good teaching
• If the teaching is right, the children will cope with the
assessment, which at KS2 is likely to have good
construct validity, and will match the curriculum
Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy
from Reception Onwards

16. Raising Standards in Literacy and Numeracy
from Reception Onwards
Colin Harrison
University of Nottingham