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Pupil profile reports face axe
Return to traditional evaluation is proposed
Thursday, 11 December 2008
The Department of Education is backtracking on its plan to provide annual school reports which do not contain pupils’ grades or marks.
Following an evaluation of a pilot scheme running in Northern Ireland's schools, the department has revealed proposals to return to a more traditional report — which will give a clear indication of pupils’ academic abilities.
Public consultation, which will include seeking the views of parents, is due to begin next week. Officials from the department’s Raising Standards Division briefed the Assembly’s education committee on the new draft regulations for pupil records and reporting yesterday.
The Pupil Profile — which was introduced as a pilot scheme in September 2007 for pupils in P1 and P5 — contained a broad range of information on pupils’ achievements, progress, interests and aptitudes, and was to be used to help parents make informed choices about post-primary schools. It did not provide a single objective score that would allow pupils to be ranked to ensure that it could not be used as a tool for selection.
However, during workshops and focus groups organised by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) to evaluate the profiles, a large number of principals, teachers and parents did not rate the content of the profiles highly.
Parents’ main criticism was that the profiles did not contain grades/marks or a comparison with their child’s peers and that they deemed this to be an essential component of any school report. Many also stated that they found them “bland” and “impersonal”.
Katrina Godfrey, head of Raising Standards, spoke yesterday about the new draft regulations being proposed following the pilot evaluation.
Mrs Godfrey said: “One of the key areas coming from the feedback was that by using a standardised format some schools were providing less information to parents.
“The evaluation in many ways was very positive. It also let us see what the strengths and weaknesses were.”
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The pupil profiles were a total waste of time and money. The only people who knew they would not be workable are the teachers themselves who deliver at the coal-face, but as always they are never consulted, and if they are consulted they just seem to be ignored!
Posted by mb | 18.12.08, 15:15 GMT
This exercise in “progressive” education was flawed from the outset, as is the new Northern Ireland Curriculum to which it is closely related. If Katrina Godfrey’s was Head of Raising Standards at the Department of Education when Profiles were introduced she should resign as she has lost the confidence of many teachers. Those who advised her should also be replaced. DENI and CCEA must be publicly accountable.
Posted by AP | 18.12.08, 10:19 GMT
This is not a shocking report for any teacher who has gone through the pointless task of spending every free minute for weeks, outside of directed time, doing a multiple choice test. It amazes me that the department get away with the waste of time and more importantly money that this involved. If teachers had been responsible for such a shocking mess they would be held accountable, and rightly so. Wait for the patch up job to follow by the same idiots who made this mess. Wouldn't it be great if teachers were allowed to teach.
Posted by GM | 17.12.08, 14:22 GMT
There has been a huge abdication of responsibility by all those involved. My son is going into P7.
No "official" academic selection. No pupil profile. Incas? Who knows?
Academic selection is the only way to uphold the system without chaos for years. The method should not be changed, but the exam itself.
Academic selection gives all kids a chance. Financial selection by the richest parents buying houses next to the best schools gives only the privilged a chance. It has happened all over the world.
Over 10-20 years, it will happen here. Heck, it already does for Primary level education, registering kids at grandparents or nanny's houses, or houses that people merely buy to let in Primary areas.
What we have here, held up abroad as a great education system, is being dragged into mediocrity.
Posted by Paul | 17.12.08, 10:28 GMT
Cautionary note for parents.
The DENI will attempt to bundle and combine the Incas assessment information into the Pupil Profile in an attempt to rehabilitate their failed instrument. The CEM at Durham University, from where CCEA bought the software package, have made it clear that the information cannot be used to assist parents in choosing post primary schools. Yet another consultation fudge on the way from the DENI. Where will this debacle end if not in chaos unless the Executive bite the bullet on accountability? The time is right to hold CCEA to account through a public enquiry.
Posted by Parental Alliance for Choice in Education | 15.12.08, 09:53 GMT
How much time has been wasted in this pointless exercise which principals and Heads have been warning about for several years. The civil servant talk by Ms Godfrey is disarmingly bland but does not conceal the total waste of time and money on an exercise which, like the other changes in curricula and the proposal for selection at 14+, would be hugely damaging to the system and would destroy the guinea pig children who will have to endure it until these too are recognised for what they are - the wholly disastrous ideological theories of the progressive left in education emanating from across the atlantic and milked for all they are worth by Sinn Fein.
Posted by PDH | 13.12.08, 02:42 GMT
"“The evaluation in many ways was very positive" says Katrina Godfrey. Even gross weaknesses or failings are described as positive in the new assessment era. Proposals upon proposals until parents are battered down. Have the DENI not got the message yet? Parents were misled on the Pupil Profile concept from the start by CCEA. The Pupil Profile is not fit for purpose so a bolt-on will not rescue it.
Posted by puzzled parent | 12.12.08, 12:31 GMT
Does this also mean that Assessment for learning is to be abandoned? Since parents deem marks/grade an essential requirement on school reports this surely means that quantitative assessments are required not opinions.
Posted by L Saunders | 11.12.08, 22:14 GMT
Look back through the archives to 2005 please read PACE's accurate warning subsequent to Dr Hugh Morrison's letter to the Belfast Telegraph.
Now reflect upon the fact that Gavin Boyd, the cheif executive of CCEA who suggested that the Pupil Profile would suffice as a replacement for the 11-plus is now the chief executive of the Education and Skills Authority.
Are you feeling good right now? If not contact your political representative to withdraw support for the ESA and rewarding failure.
Posted by the Parental Alliance for Choice in Education | 11.12.08, 20:40 GMT
As a teacher, I haven't met a single colleague who didn't either roll their eyes or swear when pupil profiles were mentioned. They are viewed by my colleagues as a complete waste of time! I have not met a single parent who appreciated or valued them.
Posted by SW | 11.12.08, 16:07 GMT
Katrina Godfrey is '' Head of Raising Standards.'' How can she and her team raise standards if they can not compare children's attainments using standardised tests? What significance does she give to children's IQs?
Parents also need profiles of the Raising Standards personnel. Who are these people and what qualifications and experience do they have in the roles they occupy?
Posted by George | 11.12.08, 15:58 GMT
Hurrah! These were a total waste of time money and effort.
Parents’ main criticism was that the profiles did not contain grades/marks or a comparison with their child’s peers and that they deemed this to be an essential component of any school report. tThis is absolutely correct.
Posted by T J McClean | 11.12.08, 12:40 GMT