What is Good Progress?

This is a question we have been asked a lot over recent years. The removal of Levels and now also P Levels has left schools unsure on the progress pupils with SEND should make. Our webinar below is designed to help schools answer that question. It would be great if I could pull out a number or a formula that you could use to judge progress, but it is not that simple. Progress needs to be judged by those who work with the pupil. There are lots of questions that need to be asked and schools need to use their assessment data to make decisions and make changes within their school.

 

The webinar doesn’t give the answer to what is good progress but gives schools things to discuss, ideas to reflect on within their school. Our products can help support schools in making decisions and evidencing progress, but the teachers need to use this data to make their own decisions and be confident in these decisions. In the webinar I covered a range of advice from Ofsted, I also covered some of the Ofsted Myths and talked about some of the changes planned for the 2019 Ofsted Inspection Framework.

As part of the webinar there were a number of handouts, these can be found in the links below:

  • Primary Steps – Progress Guidance – This document is designed to support teachers working towards End of Year outcomes to judge progress. The document gives simplified progress values for pupils that teachers can use as guidance when judging progress, teachers will need to take into account previous progress, the pupil’s needs, how effective provision has been and have there been external factors to judge if progress is good enough.
  • Progression Steps – Progress Guidance – This document is designed for schools using our Progression Steps. The document contains a range of progress values for pupils working at different levels in different key stages. It gives 3 progress values for each level. These are not ‘below’, ‘at’ or ‘exceeded’ judgements, they are bands of progress, professionals will need to have conversations about progress taking into account previous progress, the pupil’s needs, how effective provision has been and have there been external factors to judge if progress is good enough. A pupil could be in the lower quartile, but still have made good enough progress.
  • Making Data Work – Workload Advisory Group Report– This report was released on the 5th of November and is designed to help leaders think about the workload and impact their assessment and data process has. It has a number of recommendations to reduce teacher workload by reducing unnecessary work – “Attainment information should only be compiled centrally as frequently as it is possible for others to act on it. Without actions, it is not possible for collation of student attainment information to play any part in the work of a school.”
  • Government Response to the Workload Advisory Group Report – This response shows that the government agrees with the recommendations of the Workload Advisory Group
  • Ofsted Inspection Framework 2019 – Ofsted has started talking about the changes that are coming in the 2019 Ofsted Inspection Framework. It appears to be really good news for pupils with SEND as it moves away from the heavy focus on outcomes to focussing on curriculum, pupil development and preparing pupils for their future.

The initial feedback from this webinar has helped us understand where schools are on the journey around the removal of P Levels. We can also find out about changes schools are implementing now they have more flexibility around the assessment process, how they judge progress and how they communicate with parents.

If you have any questions about this webinar, you can contact me via email – dale@bsquared.co.uk. You can also book a FREE online meeting to discuss anything from this webinar. Use the link below to find a time and date that suits you…

https://calendly.com/bsquared-dale/meet-with-dale