I love this content so much, and I am baffled. I never thought of myself as someone who reflects on education. I agree with almost 100% of what this blog covers. It is almost a form of escapism. I am grateful to the author/journalist thanks to whom I landed on this blog.
Hopefully, the government will reconsider. The English citizens and residents must fight peacefully and democratically to protect this achievement. Nations with Global ambitions cannot afford not to be highly placed in international rankings.
More importantly, receiving a good education improves one's wellbeing. After a certain age, one can feel the quality of tuition they receive, identify teachers driven by the delivery of excellence, and feel good about their future.
So, thank you because your content is very meaningful for social well being. On hundred 💯 agree on your recent article about making sure that even those who will eventually opt for apprenticeships or shorter formal academic life will be given solid foundations in the core subjects.
I'd be interested to understand what has happened to comparative child poverty levels in the regions during this time period, as we know that has a casual impact on educational attainment
Good point. I’m no expert in this, and it depends what measure you use and the start point. But looking back say 20 years since the education reforms there hasn’t been much change in child poverty: slightly worse in England, slightly better in Scotland and Wales. But only a percentage point change with a bit of bumping about year to year.
The analogy with medicine is doubtful. The increase in lifespan, due mostly to reduction in childhood mortality, is not due to medicine. It's due to improvements in sanitation, housing (e.g. more air and light), working conditions, and diet -- in short, class war from below. Medicine likes to steal this credit, but even medical historians recognize that the credit is mostly misappropriated.
I am worried about the direction of England's reforms, but so far all I've really heard is that the government is keen to have some kind of vocational GCSEs, which I don't necessarily think means they are moving away from knowledge based curriculum - you could have vocational knowledge based GCSEs, after all, that focus on the knowledge required to e.g. become a plumber. I don't think it's the best use of our time or resources - I agree on your focus (and if I were education SOS, I'd get you to be a SPAD - what a pity Wes didn't get education, I feel there was a non 0 chance that might have been on the table if he had!) - but I haven't seen huge signs that the government is actually rowing back on knowledge rich curriculum. OTOH I am an eternal optimist - so perhaps I'm wrong!
As a parent the increase in quality of primary education vs. when I was at school in the 90s is really striking. My children write better, read better, know more and can do more than I could. The work on the walls done by Year 3 is better than what I was doing in my private school in Year 7 (in some cases, lol).
In the Scottish context, trust in our profession again takes a media hammering from superficial 'analysis' from individual 'experts'/commentators with self-interested 'skin in the education system game'- or their own ideological (usually anti-comprehensive) agendas- who are way too far removed from the realities of classrooms to impact in any positive way on pupil attainment and who, in their own 'writings', offer very little, if any, in relation to workable, costed solutions to drive further improvement.
The myth seems to have been established that the Scottish system has a focus on 'project-based learning'. However, Scottish secondary schools continue to deliver a subject (knowledge)-based, schema focused, teacher-led/ student-centred approach to learning (with obvious inherent inconsistencies). The 'knowledge debate' is one that exists in our education quangoland and not at the chalkface.
PISA evidence of decline being 'incontrovertible'? If critics/'experts' claim specific knowledge deficit caused the PISA decline, surely they need to identify the missing knowledge, demonstrate that our 'Curriculum for Excellence implementation' removed or reduced it, and evidence that this deficit explains the PISA performance difference.
In four/ five years' time, when the next round of PISA 'data' is released, can we please have a much more nuanced, holistic debate around systems' performance and not the simplistic, reductionist experience the teaching profession has had to endure this time round?
I agree with your analysis of the positive impact of Hirschian reforms, but I don’t feel that means there is no room for improvement in the system. A lot depends on what you aim for. I’m experimenting with project based curricula in my school, not because of some nebulous transferable skill, but because it is a vehicle for getting students to undertake large scale projects and learn the experiential knowledge that goes with it. I don’t expect it to make them better at reading (although I actually do, but not because of the project stuff, but because we teach it explicitly, expanding vocab and building grammatical understanding alongside the project). Rather I want them to have a different experience of school. And I do think this is valuable - and may (jury’s out of course) be part of the government’s thinking. My understanding of the proposed reforms is that they are an AND not an INSTEAD of.
“The whole world is worrying about their kids getting dumber. England appear to have the policy solution. And yet the government in England seem to want to reverse those policies. Why is this happening?”
The current UK government was (broadly) elected a couple of year’s ago on the general idea of “Change”- without being explicit on what is going to change, what it is going to change in to or how quickly it’s going to change. It’s tempting to think that Lucy Powell (now Burnham’s Education Secretary) will look for changes that follow suit so as to be able to say “This is what I changed”.
As the 2025 PISA tests on 15 yo’s in Maths and reading were the lowest in the history of the tests I do hope that Lucy Powell recognises England’s flatlining as a relative success that can be built on. And I also hope she avoids ideas such as those outlined in Prof. Hilary Cremin’s 2015 book “Rewilding Education: rethinking the place of schools now and in the future”
Try reading Daisy's book "Seven Myths about Education". One of it's most persuasive arguments is that the ideas have got stronger since it was published in 2013.
Québec, a competency-based system, seems to be a "reasonable" counterexample to the claim that competency-based systems necessarily perform poorly…
“Québec’s 500 mathematics score is above England's 492 and well above the OECD's 463. More importantly, only 21% of Quebec students were below PISA Level 2 in mathematics, versus 35% across the OECD. Quebec had the lowest proportion below Level 2 of any Canadian province.” - Interpretation of the data by ChatGPT
Mathematics - Québec 500, England 493
Science - Québec 510, England 516
Reading - Québec 483, England 497
- Interpretation of the data by ChatGPT
FYI “OECD flagged Quebec's 2025 results because Canadian response rates fell below PISA standards and likely introduced a small upward bias.” - Interpretation of the data by ChatGPT
Canadian education is different from other countries. Our provinces are in charge of education and we do not have a national education curricula. Quebec is a bit of an outlier. They dabbled with these progress ed policies that the rest of the world seem to adopt in the early naughts, and quickly saw the devastating results it was having on students and teachers. They soon abandoned them and went back to using the successful methods which have shown consistent success over other provinces here in Canada. To answer your question about project based learning, it doesn't work with novice learners. Early learners, even up to teen years, require direct, explicit instruction so that they can grasp fundamental knowledge at a deeper level so that then, and only then, students can then explore other concepts past the beginner level. Most educational policy these days has abandoned this idea of explicit instruction and our students are poorer because of it.
Thank you, Daisy. I feel your frustration and have often had friends and family suggest that we need to embrace the educational concepts that are failing our children.
I agree with your ideas regarding establishing a core of the best schools and leaders to work with universities. As a now-retired teacher, I find it madness that politicians are still making major changes to our schools without any evidence.
"Put simply, England went for a more traditional set of education policies, involving things like a knowledge-based curriculum, terminal exams, phonics instruction, and teacher-led classrooms."
Look, not to be offensive here, but can you please write in a way that does actually mean something to the audience?
Knowledge based curriculum doesn't mean anything to me. Everything in school is based on knowledge. There is no actual difference between that and "competency" based ones. Schools are there to teach me stuff so I can do stuff later. Please just say what you actually mean.
nothing in schools are based on knowledge anymore, at least in many countries. They're more interested in indoctrination, or following some trend about 21st century skills than they are about making sure students memorize their times tables.
Thanks for the clarification. I take your point. I’ve been in secondary teaching and curriculum leadership positions for over 30 years in the state, independent and tertiary sectors and have dealt with just about every phase and fad known to education in that time. The ‘competencies’ movement got off the ground here, Australia, in the 1990s and led to rigid forms of criteria-based assessment which have been inimical to good responsive teaching and student learning - by pushing abstract ‘skills’ to the detriment of building disciplinary knowledge and understanding. I was thinking of the broader picture, not specific lessons…. though of course this must also impact classroom practice significantly.
Maybe take a first step by looking up those terms, if they are unfamiliar to you. Include the terms ‘competency-based’ and ‘knowledge-based’ in your enquiry, they are worlds apart in education practice.
I think Arko's question is fair. Presumably not everyone reading this blog is a teacher but even if they were it would be interesting to see/ hear examples of how different a knowledge based lesson might be from a competency one. I come from a teaching background . My school based experience as teacher, headteacher and local authority senior advisor was based in primary phase, FS2 to Yr6. I also taught adults including in HE but I always preferred simple explanations. As to which is better I don't think there's much point in basing a curriculum around knowledge and skills acquisition if you don't also offer learners the opportunity to apply the learned skills and knowledge in a variety of situations. Maybe those who are subject specialists in secondary phase feel more knowledge biased and protective because of their specialist area.
I love this content so much, and I am baffled. I never thought of myself as someone who reflects on education. I agree with almost 100% of what this blog covers. It is almost a form of escapism. I am grateful to the author/journalist thanks to whom I landed on this blog.
Hopefully, the government will reconsider. The English citizens and residents must fight peacefully and democratically to protect this achievement. Nations with Global ambitions cannot afford not to be highly placed in international rankings.
More importantly, receiving a good education improves one's wellbeing. After a certain age, one can feel the quality of tuition they receive, identify teachers driven by the delivery of excellence, and feel good about their future.
So, thank you because your content is very meaningful for social well being. On hundred 💯 agree on your recent article about making sure that even those who will eventually opt for apprenticeships or shorter formal academic life will be given solid foundations in the core subjects.
I'd be interested to understand what has happened to comparative child poverty levels in the regions during this time period, as we know that has a casual impact on educational attainment
Good point. I’m no expert in this, and it depends what measure you use and the start point. But looking back say 20 years since the education reforms there hasn’t been much change in child poverty: slightly worse in England, slightly better in Scotland and Wales. But only a percentage point change with a bit of bumping about year to year.
https://social-mobility.data.gov.uk/state-of-the-nation/drivers_of_social_mobility/conditions_of_childhood/childhood_poverty/1.0
The analogy with medicine is doubtful. The increase in lifespan, due mostly to reduction in childhood mortality, is not due to medicine. It's due to improvements in sanitation, housing (e.g. more air and light), working conditions, and diet -- in short, class war from below. Medicine likes to steal this credit, but even medical historians recognize that the credit is mostly misappropriated.
I am worried about the direction of England's reforms, but so far all I've really heard is that the government is keen to have some kind of vocational GCSEs, which I don't necessarily think means they are moving away from knowledge based curriculum - you could have vocational knowledge based GCSEs, after all, that focus on the knowledge required to e.g. become a plumber. I don't think it's the best use of our time or resources - I agree on your focus (and if I were education SOS, I'd get you to be a SPAD - what a pity Wes didn't get education, I feel there was a non 0 chance that might have been on the table if he had!) - but I haven't seen huge signs that the government is actually rowing back on knowledge rich curriculum. OTOH I am an eternal optimist - so perhaps I'm wrong!
As a parent the increase in quality of primary education vs. when I was at school in the 90s is really striking. My children write better, read better, know more and can do more than I could. The work on the walls done by Year 3 is better than what I was doing in my private school in Year 7 (in some cases, lol).
In the Scottish context, trust in our profession again takes a media hammering from superficial 'analysis' from individual 'experts'/commentators with self-interested 'skin in the education system game'- or their own ideological (usually anti-comprehensive) agendas- who are way too far removed from the realities of classrooms to impact in any positive way on pupil attainment and who, in their own 'writings', offer very little, if any, in relation to workable, costed solutions to drive further improvement.
The myth seems to have been established that the Scottish system has a focus on 'project-based learning'. However, Scottish secondary schools continue to deliver a subject (knowledge)-based, schema focused, teacher-led/ student-centred approach to learning (with obvious inherent inconsistencies). The 'knowledge debate' is one that exists in our education quangoland and not at the chalkface.
PISA evidence of decline being 'incontrovertible'? If critics/'experts' claim specific knowledge deficit caused the PISA decline, surely they need to identify the missing knowledge, demonstrate that our 'Curriculum for Excellence implementation' removed or reduced it, and evidence that this deficit explains the PISA performance difference.
In four/ five years' time, when the next round of PISA 'data' is released, can we please have a much more nuanced, holistic debate around systems' performance and not the simplistic, reductionist experience the teaching profession has had to endure this time round?
I agree with your analysis of the positive impact of Hirschian reforms, but I don’t feel that means there is no room for improvement in the system. A lot depends on what you aim for. I’m experimenting with project based curricula in my school, not because of some nebulous transferable skill, but because it is a vehicle for getting students to undertake large scale projects and learn the experiential knowledge that goes with it. I don’t expect it to make them better at reading (although I actually do, but not because of the project stuff, but because we teach it explicitly, expanding vocab and building grammatical understanding alongside the project). Rather I want them to have a different experience of school. And I do think this is valuable - and may (jury’s out of course) be part of the government’s thinking. My understanding of the proposed reforms is that they are an AND not an INSTEAD of.
We just keep banging on and on, eh Daisy? Great stuff. Keep it coming.
PS had a bit of a doozy in today's Globe and Mail. It has Anna's fingerprints all over it. Now all we need is for just one, perhaps two, policymakers to snap to attention https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-canadian-education-systems-failing-report-card/?intcmp=gift_subscribed
“The whole world is worrying about their kids getting dumber. England appear to have the policy solution. And yet the government in England seem to want to reverse those policies. Why is this happening?”
The current UK government was (broadly) elected a couple of year’s ago on the general idea of “Change”- without being explicit on what is going to change, what it is going to change in to or how quickly it’s going to change. It’s tempting to think that Lucy Powell (now Burnham’s Education Secretary) will look for changes that follow suit so as to be able to say “This is what I changed”.
As the 2025 PISA tests on 15 yo’s in Maths and reading were the lowest in the history of the tests I do hope that Lucy Powell recognises England’s flatlining as a relative success that can be built on. And I also hope she avoids ideas such as those outlined in Prof. Hilary Cremin’s 2015 book “Rewilding Education: rethinking the place of schools now and in the future”
What are the main criticisms of project-based and / or competency-led education?
Try reading Daisy's book "Seven Myths about Education". One of it's most persuasive arguments is that the ideas have got stronger since it was published in 2013.
I did. Thank you.
Québec, a competency-based system, seems to be a "reasonable" counterexample to the claim that competency-based systems necessarily perform poorly…
“Québec’s 500 mathematics score is above England's 492 and well above the OECD's 463. More importantly, only 21% of Quebec students were below PISA Level 2 in mathematics, versus 35% across the OECD. Quebec had the lowest proportion below Level 2 of any Canadian province.” - Interpretation of the data by ChatGPT
Mathematics - Québec 500, England 493
Science - Québec 510, England 516
Reading - Québec 483, England 497
- Interpretation of the data by ChatGPT
FYI “OECD flagged Quebec's 2025 results because Canadian response rates fell below PISA standards and likely introduced a small upward bias.” - Interpretation of the data by ChatGPT
Canadian education is different from other countries. Our provinces are in charge of education and we do not have a national education curricula. Quebec is a bit of an outlier. They dabbled with these progress ed policies that the rest of the world seem to adopt in the early naughts, and quickly saw the devastating results it was having on students and teachers. They soon abandoned them and went back to using the successful methods which have shown consistent success over other provinces here in Canada. To answer your question about project based learning, it doesn't work with novice learners. Early learners, even up to teen years, require direct, explicit instruction so that they can grasp fundamental knowledge at a deeper level so that then, and only then, students can then explore other concepts past the beginner level. Most educational policy these days has abandoned this idea of explicit instruction and our students are poorer because of it.
Thank you, Daisy. I feel your frustration and have often had friends and family suggest that we need to embrace the educational concepts that are failing our children.
I agree with your ideas regarding establishing a core of the best schools and leaders to work with universities. As a now-retired teacher, I find it madness that politicians are still making major changes to our schools without any evidence.
"Put simply, England went for a more traditional set of education policies, involving things like a knowledge-based curriculum, terminal exams, phonics instruction, and teacher-led classrooms."
Look, not to be offensive here, but can you please write in a way that does actually mean something to the audience?
Knowledge based curriculum doesn't mean anything to me. Everything in school is based on knowledge. There is no actual difference between that and "competency" based ones. Schools are there to teach me stuff so I can do stuff later. Please just say what you actually mean.
nothing in schools are based on knowledge anymore, at least in many countries. They're more interested in indoctrination, or following some trend about 21st century skills than they are about making sure students memorize their times tables.
Thanks for the clarification. I take your point. I’ve been in secondary teaching and curriculum leadership positions for over 30 years in the state, independent and tertiary sectors and have dealt with just about every phase and fad known to education in that time. The ‘competencies’ movement got off the ground here, Australia, in the 1990s and led to rigid forms of criteria-based assessment which have been inimical to good responsive teaching and student learning - by pushing abstract ‘skills’ to the detriment of building disciplinary knowledge and understanding. I was thinking of the broader picture, not specific lessons…. though of course this must also impact classroom practice significantly.
Maybe take a first step by looking up those terms, if they are unfamiliar to you. Include the terms ‘competency-based’ and ‘knowledge-based’ in your enquiry, they are worlds apart in education practice.
I think Arko's question is fair. Presumably not everyone reading this blog is a teacher but even if they were it would be interesting to see/ hear examples of how different a knowledge based lesson might be from a competency one. I come from a teaching background . My school based experience as teacher, headteacher and local authority senior advisor was based in primary phase, FS2 to Yr6. I also taught adults including in HE but I always preferred simple explanations. As to which is better I don't think there's much point in basing a curriculum around knowledge and skills acquisition if you don't also offer learners the opportunity to apply the learned skills and knowledge in a variety of situations. Maybe those who are subject specialists in secondary phase feel more knowledge biased and protective because of their specialist area.