A few weeks ago,
I ran a survey to find out how music teachers report pupil attainment to parents and senior leaders. Since then, I’ve received 39 responses and you
can find the raw data here. Unfortunately, only five of these responses were from primary school teachers – I would love to get more KS1/2 teachers to respond so that I can update this post in future.
Some of the more interesting headline facts would be:
- None of the primary schools report using National Curriculum levels
- 65% of secondary school respondents still report using National Curriculum levels and sub-levels, despite Ofsted describing them as ‘unhelpful’
- 85% of respondents report using the same method as all other subjects in the school
- 23% of respondents report using a system classified as ‘other’ (although this drops to 15% for when secondary schools are looked at on their own)
- Only one teacher reports using audio or video footage of pupils’ work
Three key questions…
There’s a lot of thinking to do with this data but, to my mind, there are three key questions:
- Are teachers using sub-levels because they like them or because their senior leaders refuse to acknowledge that sub-levels are ‘unhelpful’?
- Why are so many teachers using the same reporting method as for other subjects? Are they required to or is it to portray music as being of equal value to ‘academic subjects’?
- Are the 23% of schools classed as ‘other’ innovating in all forms of assessment or just reporting?
I’d be really interested to extend this conversation on Twitter (
@johnskelleher). Similarly, if you haven’t responded yet, please feel free to
have your say here.