My friend Bill is a photographer. He is adept at capturing images of daily life in our hometown of Sandbach and tells me that his rule of three for taking a high-quality photo is moment, composition and edit.
The rule of three has been known and used throughout history, the Latin phrase “omne trium perfectum" translates to everything that comes in threes is perfect. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Mark Antony starts his speech by using the rule of three: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Advertisers have enticed us to buy their products with promises of chocolate that will help us to work rest and play, fast food that is finger licking good and cars that are vorsprung durch technik. Early in my teaching career, Tony Blair prioritized education, education education.
Education may have been a millennial priority, but the reality is that assessment, metrics, and accountability is the current hendiatris pervading our education system. Test outcomes rule over every other measure of school quality. Published league tables celebrate schools with advantaged intakes and schools with the highest tests scores become exempt from routine inspection. The high stakes nature of the tests has led to a narrowing of the curriculum, shortened Key Stage 3 and repetitive test paper drill and practice.
The Government drive for school performance to align with the Olympic motto of faster, higher and stronger is admirable, but over-reliance on test results to judge school quality is having a negative effect.
The School Leaders Union the NAHT, the Beyond Levels movement led by Dame Alison Peacock and the Educational Select Committee have presented a robust challenge towards the data-centric approach. Challenge is also emerging from an unlikely source, OFSTED. Her Majesties Chief Inspector for Schools thoughtful, evidence-based approach is questioning King Data and has identified the quality of the curriculum as a key indicator of school quality.
“School leaders need to recognize how easy it is to focus on the performance of the school and lose sight of the pupil. I acknowledge that inspection may well have helped to tip this balance in the past.”
At our most recent inspection in November 2018, I welcomed the fact that I spent as much time talking about the quality of our curriculum as I did talking about numbers.
The TES has reported that OFSTED is considering replacing the judgment for outcomes with a broader measure of the quality of education.
It is important to remember the rule of three when judging the quality of education in our schools. Equal emphasis on outcomes, curriculum, and personal development should be considered, data from national tests should be used to raise questions and politicians and policymakers should remember that the most important work we do in our schools cannot be distilled into a simple soundbite-friendly metric.
