Parents: The silent education stakeholder?
Tuesday 22nd May 2018
Panel 1: Is education done to you or with you?
Chaired by Neil McIntosh, President, CfEE.
Panelists: Mark Lehain, Director, Parents and Teachers for Excellence, Stephen Rollett, Inspections and accountability specialist, Association of School and College Leaders, Michelle Doyle Wildman, Acting CEO, Parentkind, Emma Knights OBE, Chief Executive, National Governance Association.
Key Note: Parents and accountability
Amy Finch, Head of strategic development, Ofsted.
Panel 2: Can parent engagement influence outcomes?
Chaired by Karen Wespieser, Director, CfEE.
Panellists: Tony McAleavy, Research and consultancy director, Education Development Trust, Dr Kathy Weston, Parental Engagement Expert, Barnaby Lenon, Chair of the Independent Schools Council, Norman LaRocque, Principal Education Specialist, Asian Development Bank.
The school reforms of the last three decades aimed to activate parental choice by increasing access to information about school performance. As a result, parents now have more information about schools than ever before through more data in the league tables and qualitative information in Ofsted reports. There is a significant research literature around this aspect of parental engagement, but all too often, once children are on roll parental engagement – and the research literature investigating it – diminishes.
Chair: Carole Willis, Chief Executive, NFER. Panellists: Dr Dirk Hastedt, Executive Director, IEA; Juliet Sizmur, Research Manager, NFER; Dr Christian Bokhove, Associate Professor, University of Southampton, Cath Murray, Features Editor & Head of Digital for SchoolsWeek and FEWeek.
England has been participating in international large scale assessments for over 20 years. The best-known of these – PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS – focus on students’ achievement in reading, mathematics and science, but they are increasingly branching out into other outcome measures as well.
Run by the OECD and the IEA, but funded by national governments, these studies have had a significant influence over education policy in England and overseas. Each time new results are published there is much fanfare and interrogation of global league tables. There is also frequent commentary from detractors of the tests, academics or teachers who are concerned about the methodology or how the results are used.
However, amongst this maelstrom, there is rarely time to step back and consider what we can learn overall about the performance of England’s education system from across the studies. This panel discussion will feature some of the key players in the system including the IEA, academics and policy makers. Together, they will consider what the latest round of findings (from PISA 2015, TIMSS 2015 and PIRLS 2016) can tell us education in England when placed in an international context.
CfEE Panel discussion: Skilling up for a future: prospective policy challenges
Lead speaker: Professor Ewart Keep, Chair in Education, Training and Skills, Department of Education, University of Oxford
Panellists: Mark Dawe, CEO, Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP); Tom Richmond, former senior adviser to the Skills Minister, vocational education and skills; and Gemma Gathercole, Head of Funding and Assessment, Lsect.
Panelists: Ben Durbin, Head of International Education at the NFER; Sandra McNally, Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Surrey; Luke Sibieta, Programme Director, Education, Employment and Evaluation division, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); and Mark Parrett, Audit Manager, Education value for money, National Audit Office.
Despite widespread concerns about the level of school funding, much of the academic literature has struggled to find a significant link between (moderate) changes in school expenditure and changes in pupil outcomes. Moreover, schools (and education systems) with similar levels of funding can achieve very different levels of pupil attainment. Evidence is lacking about the appropriate level of funding for schools, the scope for economies of scale (at a school or MAT level), how funding is best administered and where best to spend limited funds in order to have the greatest impact. At this seminar, a leading panel of scholars draw their conclusions as to where the balance of evidence lies on these important issues, with particular attention to the impact of changes to school funding and social mobility in England, including the likely effects of the new National Funding Formula.