Events

The validity of England's accountability data
Speakers: Professor Rob Coe (Durham University)
Date: 01 Oct 2015 Venue: Downing College Regent Street Cambridge Cambridgeshire CB2 1DQ
Type: Seminar Fee: Free

We are streaming Prof Rob Coe's lecture live on Periscope and tweeting under #CoeCam. WATCH NOW

In this lecture, Rob Coe will probe deeply into the form of accountability which has built up in England. Critical of Ofsted’s role and framework, the lecture will explore issues of validity and dependability in 'data on the system'.

We need to explore exactly what information the State needs, and be more clear about what data are needed by whom – the State, schools, parents. While the data themselves need to be robust, methods of collection need to be manageable and effective, analysis needs to be well-grounded, good understanding of assessment needs to be widely distributed, and the ‘washback’ from collection and reporting needs to be beneficial. Other nations, interested in system performance, do accountability very differently, and range of arguments for different approaches are strongly made, but evidence to support them is generally limited. 

Rob will explore the state of accountability in England, and ask whether we should think of the system as one which needs ‘fine-tuning’ or one which needs radical reform.

Speaker biography

Coe-Rob-155X200 - ImageRobert Coe is Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) at Durham University. As a scholar, he is an internationally recognised expert on educational assessment and evaluation; as a former teacher, he brings an understanding of classroom life to his research and a relentless desire to make research relevant to improving education. 

Rob is a co-author of the Education Endowment Foundation’s Teaching and Learning Toolkit and its DIY Evaluation Guide for teachers. He is the lead author of the Sutton Trust report What Makes Great Teaching? He is a member of advisory groups for a wide range of educational organisations including Ofqual, DfE, AQA, Pearson, Teacher Development Trust and TeachFirst. He is regularly invited to provide advice and expertise to government and opposition ministers and to the Education Select Committee, and to contribute to TV, radio, print and online media. As Director of CEM, Rob leads a team of over 100 staff. CEM is the largest educational research centre in a UK university and has provided innovative assessment and monitoring systems to many thousands of schools since 1983. Well over a million children take CEM assessments every year in more than 80 countries; CEM is the largest provider of computer adaptive assessments outside the US. 

Before embarking on an academic career, Rob Coe was a teacher of mathematics, with teaching experience in an inner-city comprehensive in Manchester, two Sixth-Form Colleges and a selective independent boys’ school. Rob has degrees from Oxford, Kings College London, Cambridge and Durham Universities. He became a Professor of Education in 2010.

Regent Street Cambridge Cambridgeshire CB2 1DQ

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