Office of the Chief Adviser on School Standards
This area of TeacherNet contains information from Sue Hackman, the Chief
Adviser on School Standards, who works in the DCSF to provide advice to
ministers on school standards issues and to develop opportunities to help
schools and teachers improve standards for pupils.
Over the last academic year, the Office has been busy working on several investigations to explore why some pupils aren't progressing as they should be and testing out solutions to help answer some of these issues.
As a result of these investigations into pupil progression, the Department is offering all primary schools in England the Making Good Progress in Key Stage 2 resource pack; and all secondary schools in England the Making Good Progress in Key Stage 3 resource pack.
The resources in the packs are based on findings of the Department's School Standards Advisers who conducted interviews with hundreds of teachers and pupils. The materials in the pack are designed to support schools' work in improving the progression of their pupils in English and mathematics at Key Stage 2 and English, mathematics and science at Key Stage 3. The resources can also be used flexibly to target school priorities and help with the continuous professional development of staff. See the Resources section to download materials from the packs and all the Office's publications.
Teachers TV has produced four programmes which reflect on and exemplify some of the findings from the Making Good Progress series of reports. See the Resources section for links to each programme.
The Office has also been focused on establishing the Making Good Progress pilot, which was launched in September 2007 in almost 500 schools across 10 local authorities. The pilot will test new ways to measure, assess, report and stimulate progress throughout the key stages.
The Office has been analysing data on pupil performance. With the data the Department collects from schools the Office can look at how pupils progress throughout their school experiences. The information is available on a local-authority level so you can see how well pupils in your local authority are performing in comparison to the rest of the country. See the pupil progression charts for further information on pupil performance.
For the latest research and international comparisons relating to education and schools, see the latest research updates, where the research available is condensed into easily navigable and understandable 'Schools Directorate Research News', 'research bites' and 'research updates'.
The Extra Mile project focuses on the cultural barrier of low aspirations and scepticism about education which prevents some pupils from succeeding at school.
Last updated: 28 August 2008
