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.
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.
It is probably off topic, but a famous study on the US decline in mortality concluded: "3.5 percent probably represents a reasonable UPPER-LIMIT ESTIMATE of the total contribution of medical measures to the decline in mortality in the United States since 1900" (my CAPS).
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’ve been working on the 100 heads idea for the last five years. Southwest100 has just finished and they’re already seeing some superb results. West100, yorks100, greater manchester100 and East100 all going strong. There is real talent in our system, and schools who are getting fantastic results for kids in genuinely replicable and scalable ways. One of the most common reflections following the school study tours that make up part of the programme is “I was expecting some sort of magic widget, but they are basically doing what we are doing. They are just doing it a lot better.”
I was old school in some of my teaching; for example, in teaching anatomy, I believed students needed to know what they were required to learn to help them proceed with their studies. In other subjects, like teaching photography, I took a balance of theory and practice as the best approach so students knew how to use a camera but also understood their limitations and how cameras and optics worked with set tasks to accomplish " Task-based learning and skills development" and research led projects as a Year 2 module; these often were based on trial projects using photography around their independent study ideas. Feedback was good, and students who thoroughly engaged were successful; there is no accounting for those who didn't show up or put any effort into their learning and skills development I could only do so much. Additional practical sessions were available but often only used by those already keen, engaged and interested.
This is fascinating! Especially this: "PISA is a screen-based test of problem-solving skills that requires limited specific curriculum knowledge. If you wanted to design a test that would be least likely to reward England’s educational approach, and most likely to reward the approach in Scotland & Wales, it would be PISA.
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).
Agree, and had a similar experience re the improvement of primary education.
But... excellent vocational education does not look the same as excellent academic education. When it focuses on "the knowledge needed to become X [eg a plumber]" it is focusing on only one element of what's needed; and even then it risks missing the point as that knowledge needs to be contextualised and embodied if it's to do its job. This is exactly what is wrong with "vocational" subjects taught at schools as opposed to colleges or universities - they often lack three vital characteristics, namely (a) teachers with industry experience (b) access to industry standard kit and (c) industry links allowing a degree of co-design and co-delivery of the curriculum. Vocational education really has a very different character and purpose from academic. We don't study history so that we can become historians. We only study plumbing in order that we might become plumbers (either professionally or as an amateur).
"We don't study history so that we can become historians."
I think that's a fundamental thing to bear in mind when creating a curriculum, as in, what then is the purpose for studying history, English, art , PE, or any subject. I think you're probably right about plumbing! I can't imagine that the government has thought that far ahead as to the actual content of any planned vocational courses. Another fly in the ointment will be finding enough qualified teachers to teach the courses whatever the content.
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.
This is probably slightly off piste but in terms of What is going on in education in England I believe it always pays to keep an eye on the private sector. Often the most innovative practice happens there first because by definition they are autonomous. The highly prestigious Winchester College is putting the emphasis offline and back to old school technology.
What gets tested gets taught: avoiding the unintended consequences of education reform - Winchester College | Independent Boarding School https://share.google/RC2fiRRuGOw6Wm0UP
Great overview, and great to see your book on 7 myths has stood the test of time! I do worry that we’ve basically peaked in England in terms of performance, given how politicians now seem keen to dismantle the things that worked for us. Really hope I’m wrong
“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.
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.
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 think vaccines played a part.
It is probably off topic, but a famous study on the US decline in mortality concluded: "3.5 percent probably represents a reasonable UPPER-LIMIT ESTIMATE of the total contribution of medical measures to the decline in mortality in the United States since 1900" (my CAPS).
https://pubmedinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/McKinley-The-Questionable-Contribution-of-Medical-Measures-to-the-Decline-of-Mortality.pdf
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’ve been working on the 100 heads idea for the last five years. Southwest100 has just finished and they’re already seeing some superb results. West100, yorks100, greater manchester100 and East100 all going strong. There is real talent in our system, and schools who are getting fantastic results for kids in genuinely replicable and scalable ways. One of the most common reflections following the school study tours that make up part of the programme is “I was expecting some sort of magic widget, but they are basically doing what we are doing. They are just doing it a lot better.”
Outline of the programme and approach here:
https://www.east100.uk
I was old school in some of my teaching; for example, in teaching anatomy, I believed students needed to know what they were required to learn to help them proceed with their studies. In other subjects, like teaching photography, I took a balance of theory and practice as the best approach so students knew how to use a camera but also understood their limitations and how cameras and optics worked with set tasks to accomplish " Task-based learning and skills development" and research led projects as a Year 2 module; these often were based on trial projects using photography around their independent study ideas. Feedback was good, and students who thoroughly engaged were successful; there is no accounting for those who didn't show up or put any effort into their learning and skills development I could only do so much. Additional practical sessions were available but often only used by those already keen, engaged and interested.
This is fascinating! Especially this: "PISA is a screen-based test of problem-solving skills that requires limited specific curriculum knowledge. If you wanted to design a test that would be least likely to reward England’s educational approach, and most likely to reward the approach in Scotland & Wales, it would be PISA.
And yet, England are still doing better on it."
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).
Agree, and had a similar experience re the improvement of primary education.
But... excellent vocational education does not look the same as excellent academic education. When it focuses on "the knowledge needed to become X [eg a plumber]" it is focusing on only one element of what's needed; and even then it risks missing the point as that knowledge needs to be contextualised and embodied if it's to do its job. This is exactly what is wrong with "vocational" subjects taught at schools as opposed to colleges or universities - they often lack three vital characteristics, namely (a) teachers with industry experience (b) access to industry standard kit and (c) industry links allowing a degree of co-design and co-delivery of the curriculum. Vocational education really has a very different character and purpose from academic. We don't study history so that we can become historians. We only study plumbing in order that we might become plumbers (either professionally or as an amateur).
"We don't study history so that we can become historians."
I think that's a fundamental thing to bear in mind when creating a curriculum, as in, what then is the purpose for studying history, English, art , PE, or any subject. I think you're probably right about plumbing! I can't imagine that the government has thought that far ahead as to the actual content of any planned vocational courses. Another fly in the ointment will be finding enough qualified teachers to teach the courses whatever the content.
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
This is probably slightly off piste but in terms of What is going on in education in England I believe it always pays to keep an eye on the private sector. Often the most innovative practice happens there first because by definition they are autonomous. The highly prestigious Winchester College is putting the emphasis offline and back to old school technology.
What gets tested gets taught: avoiding the unintended consequences of education reform - Winchester College | Independent Boarding School https://share.google/RC2fiRRuGOw6Wm0UP
Great overview, and great to see your book on 7 myths has stood the test of time! I do worry that we’ve basically peaked in England in terms of performance, given how politicians now seem keen to dismantle the things that worked for us. Really hope I’m wrong
I read Daisy's '7 Myths about Education' last week. Recommend!
Thanks for writing this Daisy. Do you have anymore insights on progress within specialist secondary education, such as Science?
Fascinating read. Would love to have you on the Education Futures podcast!
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
This was a great read! Thank you for sharing!
“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.