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Rationale for using KS3 tests as data
The reason for using KS3 tests as data for this project was so that the findings make sense in the current political and institutional context. We are not using them to 'measure' student learning, because for all schools their aims for students were about enjoying mathematics more and becoming better thinkers. KS3 results reflect institutional aims. We know, from our own and other research, that most students in general in these schools would be better at tackling unfamiliar mathematical tasks, and we also know that our sample maintained an interest and enjoyment in mathematics; they felt that they were working better, thinking harder, and achieving more than had been expected of them in the past. We also know that, given the teaching we have seen, they will be better at tackling unfamiliar mathematical situations that require some problem-solving skill. For this project we wanted to know whether PLAS were being empowered according to the current 'levelisation' philosophy in the UK for valuing learning, and doing better within school accountability measures.
These schools were all trying to improve learning for everyone as well as focusing on PLAS, therefore we compared overall percentages of students achieving level 5 or higher at KS3, to the previous cohort. We also separated the results of students in our target groups and have displayed them in graphs to show the proportion of students entering the school at level n who achieve various levels at the end of KS3, but this data does not give the overall picture because in one of our schools the cohort was highly unstable, while in another the cohort was relatively stable.
Another way to look at the data is to look at average change in levels for the PLAS for whom we have data, and ask if these changes are above expectations or national norms. At the time of writing we do not have national norms for our cohort but these will be included in this website later. A problem with making comparisons with expectations is that schools use models that take into account social background and other factors of social disadvantage. Such models are important management and self-evaluation tools for teachers, but to see how progress is comparable to other more advantaged students, that is to know if these teachers have levelled the playing field, we thought that using national test data would give more insight.
