The Great Grading Scandal | Beautiful #reconf23 programme | Making Change Stick

Hello friend

I hope this finds you well. Here are three tasty morsels of edu-waffle to tickle your taste buds:

1. The Great Grading Scandal - 1 in 4 grades are WRONG
2. Making Change Stick - amazing feedback from the Welsh pilot
3. #reconf23 - full programme, preview vids, promo code

Let’s go!

1. The Great Grading Scandal

In the last fortnight, 6 million GCSE and A-level grades were awarded to school and college leavers in England. What many people don’t realise is that 1 in 4 of these grades is WRONG.

I recently recorded a fascinating podcast with Dennis Sherwood, author of Missing the mark: Why so many school exam grades are wrong - and how to get results we can trust, in which we explore this little-known scandal in detail.

You can find video and audio versions here - or wherever you get your podcasts :)

Dennis will be speaking about The Great Grading Scandal at the Rethinking Ed conference in September. Here’s a 2-minute trailer of Dennis’s talk:

More on the Rethinking Ed conference below. In the meantime…

2. Making Change Stick in Wales

For the last 6 months, we’ve been running a pilot of the Making Change Stick implementation science programme in Wales, which was kindly funded by the National Academy for Educational Leadership (NAEL).

Nine schools took part in total, and although it’s still early days - we often think in terms of a 3-year implementation period - they've all been very effusive in their feedback on the programme.

Here’s a 2-minute compilation of school leaders talking about the impact the programme has had at their school.

There are slightly more detailed interview clips with each participant (1-2 min each) on the Rethinking Ed YouTube channel. As I say, it’s early days still, but it’s all very promising. I think we might be on to something with this one!

If you’re interested to find out more, drop me a line - or sign up for the free 10-part taster course here.

Some of you may recognise former podcast guest Cat Place in the video above - who is also speaking at this year’s conference! Speaking of which…

3. #reconf23 - programme, preview vids, promo code

Our amazing sponsor Crown House have done a beautiful job creating the full 20-page conference programme, which is now available for your perusal. Hit the image below to check it out!

Finally, here are a few more short promo vids from our conference speakers:

Andrew Speight - Embedding a culture of well-being in schools

James Fornara - Why creativity matters and how to inject some into your setting

Kamalagita Hughes - How mindfulness can help create a positive school culture

Sophie Smith-Tong - Exploring mental health and wellbeing in the Early Years Foundation Stage

Andrew Hampton - Working with boys: Creating cultures of mutual respect

Tickets are available here - and as a friend of Rethinking Ed, you can get a 20% discount with the promo code RE20FRIEND. You’re welcome!

Until the next time…

James

Dr James Mannion
Director, Rethinking Education