Not long awake. Contemplating the snow falling outside again. Do I set off before or after the early rush? First, a cup of tea. Read the newspapers online.
I'd not previously taken notice of the Pupil Premium. It's for "disadvantaged" pupils not specifically special education, though there must be pupils "with special educational needs" who are also "disadvantaged". Setting that puzzler aside as I couldn't work it out without breakfast, I checked out a couple of pages on the DfE website.
That brought me to the Education Endowment Foundation, like the Pupil Premium, something else I was only dimly aware of. It is, it says of itself, "an independent grant-making charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement, ensuring that children from all backgrounds can fulfil their potential". All very well.
I hesitated over "Independent", one of those popular contemporary words that increasingly mean less and less. Take it out and is there any discernible difference? I suppose the EEF copywriter is trying to say that it's independent of the DfE from which, as far as I can make out, it gets much of the funding it gives out in grants, so if Ministers or DfE pull the plug on that, what price "independence"?
I hestitated, too, over "fulfil their potential", that phrase, in various guises, that appears everywhere in educational thinking. It always strikes me as such a limiting phrase, as though potential cannot be transformed by inspirational teaching. Surely, what education is seeking to achieve is to transform the potential of all pupils? Anyway, leaving behind the untransformed EEF copywriter, I read that the EEF has funded 56 projects so far, some with very considerable grants, indeed. Fascinating. Well worth a look. "The EEF funds projects that it believes have the potential to raise attainment among disadvantaged pupils, and evaluates their impact through robust and independent evaluations. This section provides an overview of each project." Part of me is excited by these projects. Part asks, if projects such as these are needed, some of which seem pretty fundamental to good teaching as I understand it, what has been going on in our schools all these years? Stepping back and pausing before moving on, I wonder what the EEF's 56 projects would tell a researcher about the concerns of the modern 'educationista'?
And so to Ben Goldacre. The EEF Welcomes Ben Goldacre Report Building Evidence into Education. Bringing up children has long since struck me as essentially a messy business, all rather hit-and-miss, susceptible to waves of fashion. No matter how you professionalise upbringing as education or schooling or teaching (to be carried out only by 'qualified' teachers, of course), it remains, in essence, a messy business, into which research and evidence can offer only limited insights.
That's no case for not asking questions, of course, and seeking answers. Getting the questions right, would seem an important starting point. All of which rambling around these links and pages left me with a question. According to the recently published "The Tail", one in five children leaves school in England without basic literacy and numeracy skills. These, I'm guessing, would be the same 'disadvantaged children whose potential the EEF is seeking to fulfil. Another puzzler not to be solved before breakfast is the extent of the overlap between these one-in-five disadvantaged pupils and the one-in-five pupils with special educational needs. Are they separate or different or overlapping?
Because my question - "just asking" - as they say on twitter - is whether or not there is a similar pot of funding for projects working with teachers in schools across England, and to "evaluate their impact through robust and independent evaluations", for special education, and especially for those nearly 3% of children who have Statements of Special Educational Need, soon to become the widely-welcomed Education, Health and Care Plan?
If there is such a pot of funding, then those of us working in conductive education settings - and the parents - would be glad to know of it. Perhaps you would let me know?
Time for breakfast.