Why aspirational targets miss the mark
July 4, 2019
Tag: Data
Teachers: don’t diss the data
July 27, 2018
A recent report has called for the focus in education to be put “back on teaching, away from paperwork”. As someone who has spent four decades in education, I share the pain of pointless paperwork and meaningless marking. However, it’s important to set the record straight for what is often dismissed as “data”. The decisions we … More Teachers: don’t diss the data
Putting a face to data
April 30, 2012
I believe data is critical to the work of improving schooling and how well we use data to improve student outcomes and teacher learning is a challenge that some of the best performing systems have had to address. I sometimes think the fear we have in using data stems from the fact that we aren’t … More Putting a face to data
McKinsey 2010
December 8, 2010
The McKinsey report into ‘How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better’ was released last week. McKinsey examined 20 school systems around the world that are somewhere along the continuum of fair to great. These include Singapore and Ontario but also systems in developing countries like Brazil and India. These education are considered … More McKinsey 2010
It’s a matter of principals
October 7, 2010
Thanks to Mark Walker for sharing a recent interview with John Hattie in the Melbourne Age. Hattie is currently in Australia, continuing the Visible Learning crusade and making a lot of common sense. Australian principals are mired in tasks that don’t have much influence on how their students perform academically. Thirty-two per cent of their time is … More It’s a matter of principals
There’s something about data
April 16, 2010
In thinking about the way we use data in the classrooms, I came across an interesting blog post in the Harvard Business Review. In challenging businesses to loosen their reliance on data, Roger Martin writes: We have a deep seated desire to quantify the world around us so that we can understand it and control … More There’s something about data
MySchool
February 8, 2010
The MySchool website is still making news as the media herald it as the single source of educational truth. It is a great hit with parents and the broader community. For me, the obvious flaw of the MySchool website is that it focuses our attention individual schools and not on the work of teachers as … More MySchool
The ‘f’ word
November 3, 2009
Michael Fullan recently addressed 100+ of our aspiring leaders in the context of leading change and learning in their schools. This was a marvellous experience for leading teachers to be exposed to someone of Fullan’s calibre – armed with research and case studies on what makes an effective school leader. It is evident that one … More The ‘f’ word
Ticking the right boxes
August 13, 2009
Dr Ken Boston, former director-general of the NSW Dept of Education and former head of England’s curriculum authority has been in Australia sharing his views on national testing and league tables. While he supports national testing as a diagnostic rather than deterministic tool, Dr Boston believes league tables are in themselves a ‘crude’ methodology – … More Ticking the right boxes
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