Recently, I was in the USA visiting some education thinkers and looking at the similarities - or otherwise - of some of the challenges that the education system faces here in England.

Amongst the things that captured my thoughts was a piece by Jenny Li Fowler from the Harvard Kennedy School.  It was a short piece, summarising a longitudinal study, which looked at one million children and the impact that high quality teaching has on achievement outcomes.  In many ways, it told us what we already know, that good quality teaching has a fundamental impact on learner outcomes.  What was interesting though, was the issue about how good quality teaching was measured in terms of the value that it added.

The researchers specifically refer to good VA (value add) teachers and show that the impact such teachers have is not only immediate in terms of raising the attainment scores of young people, but also there is a relationship to longer term outcomes.  Learners who have benefited from being taught by a great teacher tend to do better when they become adults, as the piece put it so succinctly “(such students) are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, live in better neighbourhoods, and save more for retirement”.

All this got me thinking about how we measure VA at post-16 and the role of our own LPUKDatadashboards.  Our Dashboards are specifically focused on giving information to schools, colleges, consortia and local authorities to enable them to understand VA and the difference which great teachers and teaching can make.  Using a range of national data, they give the information that is needed to help understand where teachers are adding value, both at institution and course level. 

Having the data though is one thing, understanding it is quite another.  That’s why we’re looking at better ways of giving schools, colleges, consortia and others support with understanding what the figures say.  We’re working on a range of webinars and other tools that mean that we can support you without eating into your working day.  We’ll use these alongside regional and national events, so you can have the help you need.  All the details will be on the website and on our regular email newsletter.

In the end, great teachers make great value and that makes great outcomes.

For more information about the piece I mentioned, please read “The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Students’Outcomes in Adulthood,” authors John Friedman, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), Raj Chetty, Harvard University and Jonah Rockoff, Columbia University