Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)
8 DECEMBER 2004
MR STEPHEN
TWIGG MP, MR
ANDREW MCCULLY
AND DR
KEVAN COLLINS
Q200 Chairman: So you are in the middle.
You are the pragmatic centre.
Mr Twigg: Evidence-based.
Dr Collins: For us at the Early
Years the phonics is the dominant learning but what we are saying
is you do not live there; you are there for a while as you put
the learning together and then you are moving up, but we run with
the grain of what children do as active learners, and they need
all this learning.
Chairman: I think we have a good sense
of that.
Mr Gibb: How long should it take for
a child to be able to decode any word, or the majority of words—not
necessarily the standard word but just to decode.
Q201 Helen Jones: And does that include
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"!
Dr Collins: The phonic knowledge
that we lay out in seven steps in the Progression of Phonics for
Children which we provide should be in place by the beginning
or middle of year two, and then should go subterranean for us
and we attend to other knowledge. But the explicit teaching of
it is over by year two.
Q202 Mr Gibb: But the euphonics people
say they can get every child decoding within 12 weeks.
Dr Collins: We get every child
decoding—
Q203 Mr Gibb: That is what I asked.
Dr Collins: They will be decoding
by the end of reception.
Q204 Mr Gibb: So under the NLS every
child can decode after one year in reception?
Dr Collins: The basic decoding,
the CVC, is part of reception teaching.
Q205 Mr Gibb: So are you saying that
under the NLS we are getting 99% of children decoding by the end
of the year R?
Dr Collins: I cannot give you
an exact figure on it, no.
Mr Gibb: Can you send in an exact figure,
please?
Chairman: He cannot accept something
that he cannot give. Dr Collins, if you cannot give that figure,
you must say so.
Q206 Mr Gibb: Can you give it at all?
Dr Collins: We do not know that.
Q207 Mr Gibb: Finally, is it the case
that the structured phonics programmes, and you are right, there
are an array of them and no one is saying that one is better than
the other, based on the evidence that you have collected, that
work best are the ones that have texts which do not go beyond
the phonics knowledge of the children who are reading them? Would
you say they are the ones that work best? What does the evidence
show?
Dr Collins: No, I would not say
that. I would say they work best in being able to demonstrate
that children have learned the phonic knowledge. They do not demonstrate
that children are learning the other knowledge around the development
of context, syntax and the other parts of reading which, in my
view, are also important. They do not demonstrate that knowledge
at all.
Chairman: Good. We now move onto Key
Stage 1 and 2 tests and Jeff is going to open the questioning.
Jeff has been very patient.
Q208 Jeff Ennis: Minister, why have we
changed the format with the Key Stage 1 tests?
Mr Twigg: Because I wanted to
listen to real concerns that were being raised by those working
in schools, particularly by teachers and headteachers in Key Stage
1 in infant and primary schools, and I believe we have a system
in place. People are leaving. I thought everyone was here for
this item. They are all going outdoors, yes, that is right!
Chairman: To be fair, they are the out-of-school
lobby. Jeffrey, sorry about that.
Q209 Jeff Ennis: That is alright. It
is the effect I have! Sorry, Stephen, have you finished?
Mr Twigg: I got the primary part
of the job two years ago and one of the first things we did was
to have a whole series of conferences with primary headteachers.
During a period of nine months we met about 7,000 primary headteachers
and their input was critical to Excellence and Enjoyment.
One aspect of Excellence and Enjoyment was to say that
we can assess children at seven in a slightly different way and
still achieve the positive benefits of having that assessment,
and I think that is the system we now have in place.
Q210 Jeff Ennis: So we have listened
to the teachers and we have listened to the parents and the children.
What benefits do those stakeholders have in changing the test
to this mode, shall we say?
Mr Twigg: I think the new system
is one that is more flexible. It is worth reminding ourselves
that Key Stage 1 assessment under the old system was very different
to Key Stage 2 assessment, and I think a lot of the public debate
and media coverage suggested that somehow seven-year-olds were
sitting the same sort of tests as 11-year-olds when they were
not. Under the old system we did separately report test results
and the task outcomes and what was said to us was that for seven-year-olds
that was not the best way of assessing how well they are doing
and that we can put trust in teachers' own professional judgment
of how well seven-year-olds are doing. We have conducted a pilot,
as you will know, in around a quarter of schools and LEAs in the
last academic year. That pilot was evaluated by Leeds University,
and it was a very positive evaluation, and I was persuaded by
the outcome of that that this is a new system that we can operate
in all of our Key Stage 1 schools from this year.
Q211 Jeff Ennis: There has been concern
about teaching to the tests at Key Stage 2 which seems to be more
and more prevalent and which, it is argued, has led both false
indications of achievement and a narrowing of the curriculum being
taught. Would not the model now being used for Key Stage 1 take
away the pressure for teaching to the tests, and help to keep
a broad curriculum for children in year six?
Mr Twigg: I certainly feel very
strongly that we do not want schools to teach for the tests. I
do sometimes hear what you have described, Jeff, and it concerns
me greatly because I do not think that is the purpose of having
testing. I am very encouraged by the numbers of schools that do
not do that, often including schools in challenging circumstances
that still produce very good test results. What was pretty striking
in Key Stage 1 under the old system is that there was not a great
difference between test results and teacher assessment so that
was very positive. I think the concern about moving to that system
for Key Stage 2 is that Key Stage 2 is such a critical stage,
particularly with respect to the benchmarking that we do look
at the progress that has been made school-by-school, and we are
able to use the detail and consistency of the data at age 11 for
lots of different important purposes, for example identifying
the issue of writing, and in particular boys' writing. It is also
a very useful tool for some of the work that we are doing to raise
ethnic minority achievement because we now have through a combination
of the PLASC data with test data highly detailed information about
how different ethnic minorities do, not just authority-by-authority
but school-by-school, and it is useful to have the test for that
purpose as well. Eleven is different to seven is my short answer.
Q212 Jeff Ennis: Given that Key Stage
2 tests, as you have just indicated, are so important from a benchmarking
point of view, should there not be a more diagnostic element to
the testing at Key Stage 1?
Mr Twigg: I think we want that
element to be there. We certainly do not believe that tests are
the only way in which the diagnostic approach can be taken by
the teacher. The test is in a sense a snapshot. The diagnostic
work by a teacher is day in day out through the assessment that
the teacher is making.
Q213 Jeff Ennis: Okay. At the start of
today's evidence we looked at international comparisons though
PISA. If we look at international comparisons in terms of the
amount of testing, then I think we have got the "yellow jersey"
in world terms because our kids are tested to death. We have taken
evidence from other countries who have said, "Why do you
test your children so many times? What is the point of it? It
is the law of diminishing returns," et cetera. Are we not
reaching the point now because schools are improving year-on-year
where we are trying to make sure that every school is a good school—and
it is going to take a long time to get there but we are certainly
on the path down that particular road—where we ought to
be thoroughly re-evaluating the amount of testing that goes on
in this country?
Mr Twigg: Firstly to make the
obvious point that we have done that in Key Stage 1 with the changes
that have been made there. I have looked at some of the evidence
from other countries as well and it is interesting that some countries
are having the debate about whether they need to have more testing,
including more national testing. In the earlier discussion we
talked about Finland. I went to Finland largely because at these
conferences that I have described so many of the heads were saying,
"If they do not need this testing in Finland why do we need
it here?" and of course in Finland they have loads of testing.
What they do not have is the standardised approach that we take.
Q214 Jeff Ennis: It is more diagnostic.
Mr Twigg: It is more diagnostic
but there is a lot of testing. Sometimes the argument is whether
testing itself is part of the problem. It was interesting to go
from Finland to Denmark where they are having something of a national
crisis about their standards and where they looking at bringing
in standardised testing because they have a sense they do not
know how well different schools are doing. So in some places debate
is moving in the direction that we have taken as a country. I
think we always need to keep an eye on the evidence. We need to
look at what is happening, listen to people's concerns, which
is what we did at Key Stage 1. You can never totally close the
door on change but I do think some of the summative benefits of
testing for wider purposes of school improvement and school standards
mean that it makes sense still to have the tests as we have them
at 11 and 14.
Mr McCully: Perhaps I could add
to that on the importance of tests for teachers in Key Stage 1.
We have made significant changes this year but the tests remain
within the process because it is absolutely crucial for informing
the teachers' judgment, and that is what the teachers were saying
as from the pilot and in the evaluation, that the role of the
tests in Key Stage 1 was still absolutely essential to what they
wanted in terms of their classroom experience.
Q215 Chairman: Minister, you have said
several times in this session that you get out and about a lot
of which we all approve. We ourselves visit a lot of schools.
When you go you must see the same things we do. You must hear
people saying, "We are over-tested. We are over-examined
and we cannot teach because the curriculum is so restrictive and
there is not the flexibility to actually use our skills to teach."
Is that not what you are hearing?
Mr Twigg: Sometimes. I mentioned
we have had this big programme of conferences with heads. We had
a conference last week with a group of heads who have successfully
combined excellence, including some schools in very challenging
circumstances, with that broader curriculum. I think the Ofsted
report that was published last year demonstrates that that combination
is possible. So, yes, I do still sometimes hear that. Part of
the challenge that we have got is for schools to have the confidence
that they can go beyond what are often perceived constraints on
what they can do with respect to the national curriculum. A major
part of the purpose of Excellence and Enjoyment is to encourage
and foster that confidence in the system, and I think it is growing.
I genuinely think that it is a growing confidence about embracing
that broader and richer curriculum without in any way damaging
standards in literacy and literacy.
Q216 Chairman: We have seen a very different
approach in terms of inspection. We are moving to a lighter touch
inspection. We are learning that inspection has to change over
time. Is not this change in Key Stage 1 really you saying that
you can have a great deal of testing and examining full time but
after a while it ceases to have its usefulness, the utility diminishes?
Are you not really listening to what this Committee has been saying
for some time and you have moved to what you are doing in Key
Stage 1 but really you are playing your cards close to your chest?
You have recognised it, have you not, that you are moving away
from such a stringent testing regime?
Mr Twigg: I think what I would
say—and clearly there is the evidence that we have just
discussed with respect to Key Stage 1 but also with respect to
some of the other changes in the school profile—is that
we are recognising that you cannot simply have an accountability
system based on raw test results, which I know is something this
Committee has been telling us for some time, and the school profile
which is a reflection of the work that is going on with respect
to value added is a very important reflection of that as well.
I still feel you need to have robust data with respect to how
well children are doing at different key stages, for example to
be able to have value added. If we did not have the test outcomes
then we could not look at what the value added is between Key
Stage 2 and 3 and between Key Stage 3 and 4, so I think we still
want testing to be there as an important weapon in our armoury
with respect to both accountability and diagnosis. I do accept
that we are putting that in a broader context than we used to.
Q217 Valerie Davey: Can I say that certainly
Excellence and Enjoyment sends out the right message and
everywhere I have been that report above any other in primary
schools has been welcomed. We have still got testing at Key Stage
2. How satisfied are you with the progress which young people
are making at Key Stage 2?
Mr Twigg: I was very pleased this
year that we saw a significant improvement in the English results
at Key Stage 2 and a further modest improvement in the Mathematics
results. It is not as good as we want it to be. The 85% figure,
which is our national target, is not some figure that we plucked
out of the air; it is based on an assessment of what schools can
achieve. I was at Stockwell Primary School last week in Lambeth
which is a school where getting on for half the pupils are on
free school meals and the majority speak English as an additional
language. In that school they achieved the national targets. If
they can do it I believe that we can do it nationally. Clearly
there are some children with particular forms of special educational
needs who are not going to achieve a level 4 so 100% is not attainable
but I do believe that 85% is. So, yes, I am pleased that it is
upward again, it is good progress, in some schools it is remarkable
progress, but there are still too many schools that are under-performing
and that is why we are not achieving the 85% yet.
Dr Collins: Not only do we have
that aspiration in 2004 for the first time we asked schools to
set their own targets (not national targets) for what they thought
they would achieve in 2005 and beyond, and schools' own targets
take us further as well. Schools are saying that there is further
to go. Can I say something about the testing at Key Stage 1. Stephen
has talked about the need for benchmarked robust data for us to
compare schools. The other critical thing for a year two teacher
or for a year six teacher is that they have some good evidence
themselves which benchmarks their children against other children.
Previous to the tests of course we went to the days when teachers
had to manage some great big portfolio of work not knowing where
their children stood at year two with any other child at year
two, whereas this gives you a good, robust bit of information
which allows you to compare your own children. It is downgrading
the status of the test but lifting up the status of teacher assessment.
It is the balance between the two that is important, not one or
the other.
Q218 Valerie Davey: The 85% you said
you I believe in very passionately. Are we evidence-based for
our 85%?
Mr Twigg: Yes, the 85% was based
on looking at attainment by free school meal band. If all of the
schools in their respective free school meal bands could achieve
at the level of the upper quartile you would get to 85%.
Dr Collins: Not the averaged outcome
but the average rate of progress with their children.
Q219 Valerie Davey: So is the 85% now
for 2006 a realistic target or is that something that is going
to slip again?
Mr Twigg: It is ambitious. We
have gone this year from 75 to 78%. We would hope to make further
progress again next year. It would be great to hit 85 in both
subjects. My sense on this is that what is important is that we
build on the progress. Much as I very much want us to achieve
the 85% for 2006, the bigger test for me is that we continue to
see the progress towards that over these next two years.
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