September was a month of data. It would have been the case in most special schools. Like us, those schools will have struggled with systems that were created without the students in our schools in mind. Our students are usually forgotten when grand proclamations about assessment and policy are made.

We have been busy analysing all the data that was submitted at the end of last term to see how this can inform our approach with individuals and groups this year. That’s a difficult task because for most of our students we have to report using p-levels, even though National Curriculum levels have been removed that the p-scales were designed to underpin.

This creates two key problems.

Firstly, we know that best practice is for assessment to be closely linked to the curriculum, but the p-levels are not our curriculum and the curriculum that we deliver is not best assessed by the p levels.

Secondly, we are spending precious time collecting p-level data that provides very little in the way of meaningful insights into our students.

In need of solutions

So what can we do?

We need ‘deep’ data that really informs us about pupils learning and progress.

Two years ago we decided to revisit our curriculum design alongside our assessment materials.  We repackaged our curricular (as we use a number across the school) so that they all use the same subject headings and we identified a number of strands of learning which pervade all aspects of the school day.  We then designed an assessment strategy that measures achievement against these strand areas. This has been a work in progress over the last two years but we are now ready to launch it. 

We will stop collecting the data relating to social and emotional well-being, which we have previously collected, as this will be captured in the new strand assessments.  We would also like to stop collecting the p level data.

Will that be possible? We simply do not know. We are facing times of uncertainty within the education arena.  We do not know if p levels are here to stay or if they are going.  But I think we can be pretty sure that what does come next will not have been planned with pupils with SEND in mind.

So a plea: can we please have a definitive answer about p-levels?

The uncertainty is adding to teacher workloads and slowing down the move to measuring what really matters in pupils learning.  We need to move to measure what we value and away from encouraging people to value what we measure.

Dr Penny Barratt is exectuive headteacher at The Bridge, London

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