Scenes From The Battleground
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Andrew Old is the author of behind Scenes From The Battleground, an education blog which was created to discuss the state of British secondary school education.
Scenes From The Battleground
6d ago
Last month, just before she was due to stand trial for assaulting a pupil, a Scottish school teacher took her own life. Press reports drew on the accounts of her family and colleagues. They informed us that Anne Scouler was a pillar of the community who was blamed for accidental contact when trying to confiscate ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
3M ago
These were the most popular blogposts of 2022 (excluding those with scores inflated by dubious searches). They were not all written in 2022. A Tale of Three Schools “Just Give Them A Pen” What do children get permanently excluded for? Does being expelled or suspended turn you into a criminal? Seven Habits of Highly Defective ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
4M ago
Some new data about exclusions has been published, and it reveals how misleading a previous data release was. On November 24th, the DfE released an avalanche of updates. I counted over 40 items on the DfE news feed. Among them was a release of new information about exclusions and suspensions. This was data for the ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
4M ago
For some time now, the political classes in London have been trying to blame schools for crime. The latest initiative is a summit on education focused on reducing exclusions because they are believed to drive violent crime. The reporting on this has repeated all sorts of myths and misleading statements. A press release on behalf ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
4M ago
Every year, I seem to start out resolving to write more, and then, as my actual job of teaching becomes more and more exhausting, I tend to lose the habit. This year, after a good start, the blogging became intermittent after Easter and in danger of disappearing until the next new year’s resolution. But it’s ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
5M ago
The provisional GCSE results for 2022 were published on Thursday. The score that now gets the most attention is Progress 8, a measure of value added achievement across the curriculum. It is designed so that 0 should be around average and schools are divided into positive and negative scores based on whether their pupils have ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
7M ago
I have been looking at the the differences in the exclusion rates for different ethnic groups. In Part 1, I observed that ethnic minority pupils generally don’t have a higher exclusion rate than white British pupils, and that those ethnic groups that consistently have higher exclusion rates tend to make up only a small proportion ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
8M ago
One of the most confused parts of the debate about exclusions from school relates to race and ethnicity. For many journalists, politicians and activists it simply must be the case that ethnic minority pupils, particularly black pupils, are more likely to be excluded. The 2 most recent sets of figures are from the 2019/20 and ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
8M ago
The latest exclusion and suspension figures are now out. They can be found here. They are based on the 2020-2021 academic year, which was the second year to be affected by a lockdown due to Covid. Lockdown covered a much shorter period in this academic year than in 2019-2020. Permanent exclusions have fallen for the ..read more
Scenes From The Battleground
10M ago
The Guardian recently chose to print an utterly uncritical piece on No More Exclusions, the campaigning group that wants even the most dangerous young criminals to stay in school with their victims. More accurate information about that group and their appalling views can be found here (from me) or here (from the TES). While I’m ..read more