Do you think there's anything in particular driving the focus on the key stage 4?
Well, again, I think most people would say it is the performance indicators. I think there's a general acknowledgement of that. Again, I said last week—. There was a conference of all the secondary heads in Wales, and that was one of the major discussion points in the conference: how do we get the performance indicators right so that there are no perverse incentives in it?
To what extent are decisions being made in schools concerning the application of the PDG actually evidence-based? To what extent are they using research to back up how they're using the PDG or is it effectively just guesswork?
I think that, of all the areas of school policy, this is the one that's most evidence-based. I think that, generally, schools can do much more about using evidence and research findings, but this particular area is probably the one that schools are strongest at using research in. That's partly because the guidance strongly suggests that you should do that, but also because there is a lot of easily accessible research evidence available. So, there's a lot of research on this. As I mentioned earlier, the Sutton Trust toolkit is a good example where researchers have really tried very hard to simplify all the evidence that exists in a way that schools can use. So, there are little pound signs to show how costly an intervention is and little stars or something to show how many months of gain pupils get out of this particular intervention. So, it makes it much easier for schools to make a decision. But I think what's missing is that you can't just take that evidence as it is, because you have to implement it in your own school, and that then will affect how effective that particular intervention is. Just because it is evaluated by researchers as being generally very effective doesn't mean that you will necessarily implement it effectively. So, it is therefore important that each school does evaluate. So, there are kind of two sides to using research. There's looking at research, but there's also doing your own research and evaluating how effectively you have implemented something. I think that's been a weakness.