‘Gaming’ in the English primary school: ‘do whatever you need to do to make your data look good’

ABSTRACT

In an international policy environment of intensified high-stakes accountability, pupil assessment data are an invaluable commodity and critical indicator of both school and teacher effectiveness. Teachers’ engagement with pupil data and the associated experiences of increased accountability are of great consequence, and highly contentious for perceptions and experiences of policy. In the context of the English primary school, this paper explores the progressively tactical nature of teachers’ enactment of assessment policy, and the impetus to ‘make the data look good’. It draws upon an empirical study of rich qualitative data from 42 interviews with 22 primary teachers employed in the South-East of England. The findings add to an evolving field about ‘gaming’, and particular consequences for teacher identity are discussed. The paper further advances insights about teachers’ experiences of ‘in-school assessment’ as pertinent for understanding gaming. It locates the pupil progress meeting as an iteration of teacher accountability and performativity, and particular site of contestation, and a specific contribution to knowledge in this regard.

KEYWORDS:

• Accountability
• assessment
• gaming
• performativity
• primary teacher

Introduction

In the context of the international ‘policy epidemic’ in education (Ball 2003; Verger, Parcerisa, and Fontdevila 2019), the implementation of accountability programmes based on performance measures is commonplace and far-reaching. This paper deliberates upon English primary teachers’ enactment of assessment policy designed to satisfy high-stakes accountability measures. Historically, policy reform has proved pivotal to the (so-called) ‘modernisation’ of education, not least in the pursuit of ‘raising standards’, and no more striking than in the context of pupil assessment and accountability protocols. The neo-liberal trinity, or the ‘three interrelated policy technologies [of] the market, managerialism and performativity’ (Ball 2003, 215) are of relevance for my research, and foregrounded by the global educational reform agenda. The neoliberal restructuring of public education systems (Sahlberg 2016), specifically, the proximity between education policies, economic policy discourse (Sahlberg 2016, 134) and the ‘underlying principles of standards and accountability in education policy’ (Verger, Parcerisa, and Fontdevila 2019, 3) are of note.

In the age of measurement (Biesta 2009), high-stakes assessment is an integral constituent of the current accountability system (Hutchings 2021). Much of the assessment discourse reflects the ‘high-stakes’ of national exams and standardised tests, and research in the field burgeons in the global context of neo-liberal education policy reform – for example, Lewis and Hardy (2015) and Gore, Rickards and Fray (2022) in Australia, Hofflinger and von Hippel (2018) and Levatino, Parcerisa and Verger (2024) in Chile, Gewirtz et al. (2019) and Bradbury, Braun and Quick (2021) in England, Verger et al. (2020) in Spain, and Brathwaite (2017) and Taylor (2023) in the USA.

Without doubt, ‘accountability has gone global in the education policy arena’ (Verger et al. 2020, 143). Along with school inspection, and as influential in the drive to raise standards, the status of pupil assessment is a vital component for school and teacher accountability, making student performance data an important commodity. Performance measurement and management are agreed as fundamental for school and teacher accountability (Gewirtz et al. 2019), ‘making educational actors (including schools and teachers) more responsive to and responsible for their actions and results’ (Verger, Parcerisa, and Fontdevila 2019, 4). This high-stakes policy environment incentivises schools and teachers to ‘play the system’ (Astle 2017), and an essential backdrop for the exploration of gaming.

In England, ‘the heightened neoliberalism after 2010 increased the emphasis on performativity, accountability and achievement in schools’ (Williams-Brown and Jopling 2021, 238), so the aftermath of notable policy reform, and Schools’ White Paper ¹‘The Importance of Teaching’ (Department for Education 2010), provides a contextual marker for my research. The aim of this paper is to elaborate the complexities of English primary school teachers’ enactment of assessment policy. The term ‘enactment’ better portrays the complex processes of policy interpretation and ‘translation’ by teachers (A. Braun, Maguire, and Ball 2010, 549), and particularly in relation to gaming. The term ‘gaming’ is used to denote a variety of strategic behaviours and tactics deployed to enhance pupil performance and outcomes, and evident in national and international literature (Amrein-Beardsley 2014; Done and Knowler 2020; Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2022; Koretz 2018; Munoz Chereau and Ehren 2021). Common to conceptualisations of gaming are notions of ‘fabrication’ (Ball 2003), and data manipulation (Done and Knowler 2020; Thompson and Cook 2014) – both significant for my subsequent discussion of ‘in-school’ data and the pupil progress meeting (teacher meeting with school leaders).

The relationship between accountability, high-stakes assessment and gaming within secondary education (or high school), is categorical (Astle 2017; Koretz 2018). In England, consequent to the 2010 White Paper, assessment policy reforms in primary education further strengthened the relationship between assessment and accountability (Bew 2011; McIntosh 2015), resulting in ‘significant upheaval within the sector’ (House of Commons Education Committee 2017, 18). This paper locates the strategic nature of policy enactment as fundamental to the increasingly oppressive accountability reforms specific to English primary schools. I explore teachers’ experiences of progressively high-stakes ‘in-school’ summative and formative assessment practices, and the meaning of ‘gaming’ in this context. Of note, is the function and distinctiveness of the pupil progress meeting. Whilst occasionally broached (Bradbury 2019; Pratt 2016a; Pratt and Alderton 2019), it arguably warrants greater attention for the mutually beneficial process performed between teachers and school leaders. Further to the commonplace contexts for teacher monitoring and accountability (Page 2015), the pupil progress meeting may be a valuable addendum, as well as a unique site of contestation. I explain the nature of this meeting later.

First, I set the scene with a brief overview of accountability and assessment in schools in England, including a discussion of gaming, before explaining the methodology of the study, and presenting and discussing my findings.

Accountability and assessment in schools in England

Accountability can be defined as ‘a government’s mechanism for holding educational institutions to account for the delivery of high-quality education’ (Brill et al. 2018, i). Within the context of neo-liberal policy reform, accountability is theorised as ‘a central plank of education policies across the world’ (Hutchings 2021, 45), fusing pupil outcomes with school effectiveness and synchronised with teacher performance. Internationally, the increased intensification of work is consequent to ‘marketised education policy manoeuvres, variously related to accountability and performativity’ (Thompson, Mockler, and Hogan 2022, 85). High-stakes accountability in England encompasses a suite of data driven protocols designed to hold schools and teachers accountable and enabling school comparison, not least by parents and the school inspectorate, commonly referred to as Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills). Ofsted is responsible for the inspection of educational settings; schools are numerically graded based on the expectations in the inspection framework and the associated grading criteria. Crucial for any overview of school accountability in England, the role of Ofsted has influential scope and well-documented in the literature (Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes 2017; Page 2018). The process to ensure ‘Ofsted-readiness’ typically entails the collation of detailed data-sets, headlined by national standardised test results, as well as bolstered by in-school data exemplifying the necessary ‘story’ of pupil success and teacher and effectiveness (Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes 2017). The greater emphasis on pupil progress (alongside pupil attainment) has ramifications for the range of ‘evidence’ necessary to satisfy both internal and external scrutiny (Bew 2011).

The relationship between assessment and accountability is pivotal and well documented (Baird et al. 2017; Jerrim 2021; Perryman and Calvert 2020; Thompson, Mockler, and Hogan 2022). The type and purpose of assessment has been traditionally demarcated into ‘high-stakes’ (summative) and ‘low-stakes’ (formative) assessment – these ‘stakes’ correlate with the function of the associated data as accountability measures. Arguably assessment assumes high-stakes when there are critical consequences for the stakeholder, e.g. the individual pupil, teacher or institution (Jerrim 2021). Both in-school summative assessment and nationally standardised summative assessment are noteworthy in this regard and serve as critical indicators of pupil progress. Conceivably, formative assessment practices assume progressively higher stakes consequent to heightened accountability measures. Whilst the ‘driver for formative assessment is to improve students’ understanding’ (Baird et al. 2017, 335), the suite of assessment for learning practices (and data) are increasingly subject to repurposing to augment the data trail of pupil success and teacher and effectiveness.

The concept of ‘datafication’ (Lingard, Martino, and Rezai-Rashti 2013; Roberts-Holmes 2015) reflects the grip of data in schools, and the all-embracing accountability measures that continue to be a catalyst for the widespread production, and analysis, of pupil data (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2022; Lewis and Holloway 2019). The primary school calendar is crowded with high-stakes assessments, not least the annual SATS tests and punctuated with periodic reporting to school leaders, parents, the Governing body, the local authority and possibly Ofsted. SATS (standard assessment tasks) are assessments of primary pupils’ progress and attainment completed at the end of key stage one (KS1: phase of primary education for pupils aged 3–7 years) and key stage two (KS2: phase of primary education for pupils aged 5–11 years) (Roberts 2022). Alongside the scheduling of high-stakes statutory assessment in almost every year group (Wyse, Bradbury, and Trollope 2022), the accountability system in primary schools in England is recognised as extensive (Bradbury, Braun, and Quick 2021).

This is an important backdrop for the status of ‘in-school’ summative assessment which draws upon data generated from the broader suite of assessment for learning strategies deployed in the primary classroom, as well as from periodic assessment like end of week/term/year assessment and topic tests, tasks and quizzes (McIntosh 2015, 7). These in-school summative data ‘comprise teacher judgments on the basis of one task, or a range of tasks and evidence’ (Earle 2019, 222). Progress trackers encapsulate marking summaries, target setting and can include attainment in tests (e.g. spelling), as well as progress against age-related expectations. Pupil tracking begins in the early years of schooling and continues throughout primary school typically utilising commercial software and IT systems (Bradbury 2019). This enables monitoring of pupil cohorts, supporting leaders to identify potential interventions required to ensure pupils achieve sufficient progress and ‘expected attainment’ (McIntosh 2015). The data trail necessary for school leaders and the process of external inspection establishes pupil progress trackers as testimony to ‘schools … operating effective systems of assessment for monitoring and supporting pupil performance’ (McIntosh 2015, 20), and accompanying artefacts like pupils’ books as ‘evidentiary fortifications for Ofsted purposes’ (Proudfoot 2021, 822). Onerous marking policies have been prone to specifying feedback protocols e.g. pen colour, as well as the arduous ‘triple marking’ (Earle 2019, 13) further intensifying the ‘evidencing’ of pupil progress. Thus, traditional formative assessment practices may be shrewdly modified ‘for the adult who is looking’ (Brady and Wilson 2021, 56).

One consequence of heightened accountability is the position of the ‘pupil progress meeting’. Potentially positive (Dann 2016), it ostensibly functions as a periodic review between the class teacher and senior leadership team, with an eye to monitoring pupils’ progress and data. Typically, an important reference point is the class ‘tracker’ containing individual pupils’ profiles, test marks, and achievements, and prepared in advance. I argue this meeting acts as a tactical setting for the examination (and potential manipulation) of pupil outcomes.

Accountability should be considered in tandem with the increased responsibilisation of the teacher and the integral relationship to performativity. Agreed as a vital constituent of accountability (Bradbury 2018; Done and Knowler 2020; Gewirtz et al. 2019; Lewis and Holloway 2019), ‘performance measurement has become a fundamental component of the means by which schools and teachers are held accountable to the government’ (Gewirtz et al. 2019, 504). Increasingly, the teacher further ‘assumes the status of a performative subject, one whose sense of self is informed largely by what (s)he thinks data reveal about her/him’ (Lewis and Holloway 2019, 36).

The pressure to demonstrate pupil progress, and associated burden of collating and analysing ‘in-house’ data may have serious consequences for teachers (Jerrim 2021). These data become an essential constituent for practice, pupil progress and teacher effectiveness, and the pressure to raise standards means schools and teachers are acknowledged as increasingly strategic in the representation of pupil performance or the ‘gaming of accountability procedures linked to the quasi-marketisation of the education system’ (Done and Knowler 2020, 5)

Gaming

Positioned in the intersection between accountability, assessment and performativity, gaming is described as ‘deliberate manipulation of the system’ (Astle 2017, 23). Reputed in performance management systems within and beyond education, Mizrahi and Minchuk define gaming as ‘a suite of behaviours encompassing untruthful reporting [and] manipulation of data (2021, 1). Twenty years ago, Stephen Ball (2003, 222) commented on the “game playing” articulated by teachers and of the “management of performance”, although the variety and complexity of teachers’ tactical work is now wide-ranging.

The English Government previously acknowledged how ‘measures of performance encouraged “gaming” behaviour – with primary schools over-rehearsing tests and secondary schools changing the curriculum’ (Department for Education 2010, 13). However, the continuum of gaming reflects the diversity of the phenomenon; certain strategies serve to enhance the school’s performance, and relate to high-stakes tests and exams, some are longer term and effectively ‘institutionalised’, e.g. the narrowed curriculum (Gewirtz et al. 2019) and ‘setting or streaming’ pupils (Astle 2017), whilst others correlate with the pressure on individual teachers to produce ‘good data’ of all kinds. Common to the definition of gaming are those ‘tactics intentionally deployed to further enable school performance, rather than for the pupils’ best interest’ (Munoz Chereau and Ehren 2021, 26), and/or the ‘manipulation of academic performance data’ (Done and Knowler 2020, 1).

Research in secondary education points to various tactics deployed to ‘play [or game] the system’ (Ingram et al. 2018) for example, gaming examinations through entry practices (Ingram et al. 2018), ‘off-rolling’, that is ‘pupil removal [from school] designed to enhance school performance data’ (Done and Knowler 2020, 1), ‘hot-housing’ (i.e. accelerating rate of progress through additional classes), grade inflation and maladministration e.g. ‘over-aiding in tests, changes being made to pupils’ scripts, reporting pupils’ scores incorrectly, inflating or deflating judgements of pupils’ work’(STA, 2022, 4).

The issue of high-stakes data gaming is just as ‘relevant to the primary school accountability system in England’ (Prior et al. 2021, 25). In the context of the ‘politicised and pressurised’ environment of primary education (Murray and Passy 2014, 499), ‘curriculum narrowing and teaching to the test’ are consequential to the increased pressures of SATS tests (Gewirtz et al. 2019; Hutchings 2021). A ‘lack of trust in the results attained by primary pupils’ (Coldwell and Willis 2017, 591) is fuelled by research pointing to the inflation of KS2 test data consequent to ‘widespread practices of coaching and cramming and, in some cases, outright cheating’ (Gewirtz et al. 2019, 514). Preparation for specific tests, e.g. the Phonics Check, may also constitute ‘gaming’; pupils experience curriculum adjustment, strategic grouping, triage and intervention to maximise outcomes (Bradbury 2018; Bradbury, Braun, and Quick 2021; Carter 2020)

Whilst I emphasise the English context, many of the tactics are mirrored internationally, for example, in Australia (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2022; Lewis and Hardy 2015), USA (Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes 2017; Koretz 2018), and Chile (Hofflinger and von Hippel 2018). The discourse of gaming is varied and best understood as an international and dynamic phenomenon in schools, often expressed euphemistically or figuratively, and remarkably similar, regardless of country or context.

Beyond the context of traditional high-stakes data, little has been said about gaming in the primary (elementary) school. Ahead of standardised tests, the requirement to gather, input, analyse and share a variety of pupil progress data has further intensified primary teachers’ work and I argue that the low(er) stakes in-school summative, and formative assessment now assumes higher stakes, is susceptible to gaming and merits closer scrutiny.

Methodology

This paper draws on data collected for my broader qualitative study entitled ‘Primary school teachers’ experience of policy reform in the second decade of 21st century England’ (Sturrock 2018), during a period documented as a ‘policy storm’ (Bradbury 2018). Unexpected in the data, an abundance of stories of ‘the numbers game’, ‘game-playing’ and data fabrication, warranted further scrutiny, and thus the focus of this paper. The broader study explored English primary school teachers’ perceptions and experiences of their work subsequent to the 2010 White Paper, and fieldwork was conducted between 2014 and 2015. There were two research questions:

RQ1

How is education policy reform perceived and experienced by primary teachers in England?

RQ2

What are significant influences on, and threats to, primary teachers’ motivations and morale?

In this section, I detail the methodology of the (broader) study before presenting outcomes of data analysis relating specifically to assessment and accountability. My methodology drew upon principles of narrative enquiry to encourage teachers’ ‘storying’ and to ‘voice their beliefs, perspectives, and experiences’ (Mann 2016, 121). Whilst teachers were not questioned directly about assessment or accountability, recurring data reflected stories of ‘game-playing’ – a phrase describing a variety of phenomena linked to the assessment and attainment of pupils.

Apposite to professional history and occupation, I acknowledge my positionality as a partial insider. I worked as a primary teacher, and subsequently employed in teacher education; my professional role encompasses relationships with, and ongoing knowledge of teachers, schools and the broader context of education. The relationship between my positionality and the research was dynamic, necessitating attention and action in each phase of the study (Mann 2016), and an ongoing assessment of my ‘biases and motivations’ was essential (Tracy 2010, 842).

Research participants

Adopting a purposive or ‘judgement’ sampling strategy, with a view to ‘studying information-rich cases in-depth’ (Patton 2015, 659), I contacted 45 primary teachers in the South-East of England. All were previously known to me through their initial teacher education and/or ongoing professional contact (there had been little or no communication since their qualification as teachers, between two and fifteen years earlier). The proposed pair of interviews spanning 10 months meant convenience was also a factor in sampling. Twenty-two teachers participated, representing a diverse group with regard to gender, age, professional biography and roles, and were assigned pseudonyms (Appendix). One participant was explicitly canvassed as to the opportunity of conducting both interviews ahead of the designated timeframe, and this constituted the pilot study for the research (data were included in the main study, with the participant’s permission).

It is timely to acknowledge the limitations of the study, some of which are underpinned by my prior relationships with participants. It is possible some may have felt motivated to engage with the study because of institutional history and allegiance. From the outset, I was attentive to the ways my positionality could impact on the research outcomes (Mann 2016, 15). I was reflexive about my position and endeavoured to reflect possible influences and assumptions through research design (Tracy 2010). The use of particular techniques, e.g. memo-ing, and fieldnotes, personal journalling, reflexive questioning and post-interview member reflection supported an ongoing and systematic critical examination of my impact on the research Tracy 2010, 842), and further enabled methodological rigour. That said, my positionality was arguably an asset to the study. Whilst this was a small-scale study the transferability of the research is partially realised through the relatively diverse sample, and findings may resonate for those in similar contexts.

Semi-structured interviews

Conducive to an exploration of experience, 42 individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with primary teachers. Participants were informed of my interest in ‘knowing more about local and national policy developments that impact on the experience of being a primary teacher’ and the format of the semi-structured provided ‘room for negotiation, discussion and expansion of the interviewee’s responses’ (Mann 2016, 91). Questions were designed to provoke reflection on the perceptions, experiences and meanings assigned to being a primary teacher at that time. Questions were open-ended and invitational, e.g. in interview 1, teachers were asked to ‘tell me about how they came to be a teacher at their current school’ as well as ‘what’s life like there’. In interview 2 teachers were asked to tell ‘the story since we last met’. Teachers were not canvassed about any particular aspect of primary school teaching; areas of discussion were teacher-led with the freedom to talk about whatever they wanted.

Sensitive to the demands of the school year, and corresponding with assessment reforms in England (McIntosh 2015), the research had a longitudinal quality and incorporated two lengthy interviews (90–120 minutes) with each teacher, conducted six to eight months apart. The spaced interviews afforded a valuable opportunity for retrospection (Mann 2016), and especially pertinent to a dynamic policy landscape. The interlude corresponded with major policy changes that acted as critical provocation for elaboration and exploration between the first and second interview (Mann 2016). Preliminary analysis of the initial interviews afforded benefits to personalise the second, in conjunction with transcript extracts shared with participants. The adoption of ‘member reflections’ was ‘less a test of research findings as … an opportunity for collaboration and reflexive elaboration’ (Tracy 2010, 844), and the prospect to stimulate further discussion.

Ethics

The research was underpinned by the British Educational Research Association’s ethical guidelines (BERA 2018) and approved by my University’s research ethics committee. Central to ethical practice, I secured voluntary, informed consent, and clarified procedures for anonymity and ensuring confidentiality. To further safeguard participants, a two-staged consent procedure was adopted. This reflected a concern about participants’ well-being, both in relation to the time constraints, as well as the ramifications of issues raised in the first interview. The potential sensitivities of interviewing teachers at a time of professional upheaval, together with the general context of workload, were carefully considered (BERA 2018), and fieldwork preparation, including the pilot study, reflected the potential risks as well as strategies for managing distress or discomfort (BERA 2018; Mann 2016, 77). Further contemplating the ‘ethics of anonymity’ (Mann 2016, 237), adoption of the aforementioned ‘member reflections’ facilitated further discussion of the etiquette of assigning pseudonyms, as well as the joint collation of participant pen-portraits. There are ethical implications of drawing upon an historical relationship for the sake of research, and ethical protocols are framed by my positionality.

Data analysis

This paper draws upon those data particularly related to assessment and which constituted one of my original study’s four broad findings (name deleted to maintain the integrity of the review process). Each interview was recorded and listened to, and data were transcribed, coded (and collated into potential themes). I adopted Braun and Clarke’s (2006) approach to thematic data analysis, reflecting the recommended six distinct phases: data familiarisation, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the report. My inductive approach was conducive to the exploration of ‘unanticipated results’ (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2022, 7), and the relationships and patterns within the individual accounts as well as across the data-set. Working with transcripts, ‘coding is a process of capturing both a semantic and conceptual “reading” of the data’ (Mann 2016). Subsequent to the application of working codes, general themes were generated from the data; the ‘the key-ness of a theme is not necessarily dependent on quantifiable measures but in terms of whether it captures something important in relation to the overall research question’ (V. Braun and Clarke 2006, 10). The identification of themes was a recursive process where preliminary themes were ‘tested’ alongside data from the second interviews and enriched using strategies to further ‘describe/compare/relate’ and comparison and pattern analysis, using divergent views and negative cases to challenge generalisations’ (Bazeley 2009, 6).

Further to the limitations of this study, the timeframe for data collection was illustrative of a critical time in primary school assessment reform in England (Bew 2011; McIntosh 2015), and the context of an evolving culture of gaming in primary education. Later in the paper, I reflect on the ramifications of these data for the field. My findings substantiate and enrich the discussion about gaming, providing particular insights into the context of primary educators’ experiences of in-school assessment and the pupil progress meeting.

Findings

Selected data reflect stories from two-thirds of the participants in the study – pupil data were positioned as a ‘massive issue’ (Tony, Phase 3), from the least experienced teacher bemoaning the impact of ‘the number game’ (Barry, Phase 1), to the most experienced, castigating the ‘system’ and of ‘playing the data game’ (Simon, Phase 3). That said, for some participants, the issue of pupil data appeared less dominant in the interviews relative to other demands and challenges of school life. For example, resignation (Fiona), crises of confidence (Lynn), challenges of special education (Nina), issues of well-being (Glenys), or the broader pressures of life in a school in ‘special measures’ (Beth).

However, for the majority of participants, (unsolicited) narratives about data were high-profile in the interviews, and particularly candid, despite the potentially sensitive nature of the topic. One finding is that both formative and in-school summative data are subject to adjustment to fulfil the brief of ‘looking good’. Specifically, the pupil progress meeting is portrayed as a key setting for the tactical scrutiny (and adjustment) of ‘in-school summative assessment’, and of increasingly strategic practices to ensure pupil data appear respectable. The second is of the repercussions of heightened accountability and gaming for performance management.

Making the data look good

Particular assessment practices, for example, marking (and moderating) pupils’ work were frequently portrayed as nonsensical and tactically performed to appear compliant. In his first year of teaching, Barry had learnt to ‘jump through the hoops’ to ensure the appropriate ‘picture’ of practice and progress was evident:

[School leaders] are interested in [children’s] books rather than observations. So as long as I can keep up my marking, then I’m not too worried about Ofsted.

(Barry, Phase 1)

In Harriet’s account, accountability protocols led to pedagogic modifications of traditional assessment procedures, like marking, some of which are described as ‘insane’, and with the adult (rather than pupil) audience in mind:

It’s ridiculous. You’ve got a year 5 teacher who’s admitting to the fact she’s writing on post it notes what she wants the kids to write underneath her feedback so it’s there and it’s responded to.

(Harriet, Phase 2)

Teachers appear professionally compromised and pressured, and enact school assessment policies with future monitoring or inspection in mind. Policy enactment with pupils too young to decode the written feedback generates additional work with few gains.

YR1 teachers are doing the ‘real written’ feedback … . They have to show the children have responded to the feedback (who) can’t read it. So, you have to read it to them. Then you have to write (their comments) with them.

(Harriet, Phase 2)

Authentically engaging with marking expectations is unrealistic although the illusion appears perpetuated through agreed ‘engineering’. The workload generated by fulfilling the expectations of the internal surveillance by school leaders, or by retrospectively catching up, is experienced as unmanageable and demoralising – a ‘charade’. For Eleanor, the threat of unprompted school management monitoring visits provoked ‘pre-emptive’ action with her pupils’ books and influenced her decision to ‘hot-house’ particular pupils whose ‘three lines [of work] aren’t going to look good if [Ofsted] look at my books’ (Eleanor, Phase 1). Pupils experience additional coaching and interventions to ensure their books fulfil expectations and demonstrate compliance ahead of internal monitoring. Likewise, Jimmy recounts the ‘charade’ of submitting children’s books to the headteacher for scrutiny. Intended as an illustrative proportion of all marked books, the selected texts were strategically modified ahead of submission:

[The headteacher said] ‘Could you please submit a top, middle and bottom book for scrutiny’? So, I sit and mark those; lots of key questions, lots of deep, spiritual and thoughtful prompts … and then asked those three children to ‘go away and respond’ [to the teacher feedback]. And then we learn every teacher has done the same thing. It’s a joke around the school. Even my team leader was doing the same thing and we had a chuckle about it.

(Jimmy, Phase 3)

The insinuation of collusion to perpetuate the image of compliance appears somewhat comical to all involved. Both formative assessment practices and engagement with in-school summative data appear liable to manipulation to satisfy internal monitoring; furthermore, the context of teachers’ experiences of in-school numerical (summative) data warrant further analysis.

The pupil progress meeting

The events of the pupil progress meeting recur in several participants’ stories. Arguably one of several potential sites of contestation including, e.g. the ubiquitous ‘learning walk’, lesson observation and pupil book scrutiny (Page 2015), my data point to particular nuances in the pupil progress meeting, which I further expand in the Discussion.

Ostensibly, the meeting is a periodic review between the class teacher and senior leadership team. Typically, the meeting is positioned as supportive, child-orientated and strategic characterised by professional dialogue. An important reference point is the class ‘tracker’ containing individual pupils’ profiles, test marks, achievements and (at that time), ‘levels’ of progress. Apropos of the English National Curriculum and subject attainment targets at that time (Pratt and Alderton 2019), it is worth noting the (then) common practice of ‘predicting and reporting on pupils’ progress, specifically in terms of levels’ (Swann et al. 2012, 3).

Teachers of all career phases are represented in encounters with school leaders over pupil data and reiterated the meeting as a critical setting for scrutinising and negotiating pupil outcomes. The frequency of privileging, adjusting or mis-representing data was described by one teacher as ‘jiggery-pokery’ and the inference (of dishonesty or deceit) was unmistakeable. Barry (Phase 1) appeared resigned to the incidence of colleagues ‘inflating levels to make themselves look good’. As before, ‘looking good’ may point to the pressure of teacher productivity and success.

Data reflect the transitional context of national curriculum levels infamously disbanded subsequent to teachers’ so-called ‘conditioning’ by levels (McIntosh 2015), and some accounts were framed in relation to the (now obsolete) national curriculum levels (and further broken down into alphabetical sub-sections). In both cases (below), the headteacher is portrayed as cajoling, and teachers as compliant and cynical:

[The headteacher said], ‘Are you sure that “2B” writer’s not “2A”? You’re sure you can’t squeeze a level 3 out of them?’ You go into the pupil progress meetings; you’re told a child that was given a 2A needs to be a 4A [in their SATS]. On what planet?.

(Barry, Phase 1)

The data, the levelling, it’s a game you play. I think it’s a game the Head and the deputy head play. [They say] ‘we want everyone to go away and just have a look at those children you say have made 2 points of progress. Is it actually the case some of them have made 3 [points of progress]?’.

(Jimmy, Phase 3)

Reviewing pupil progress with senior leaders, notably the Headteacher, was revealed as a stressful event, most notably through the querying of teachers’ judgments. This is echoed in Skeritt’s work where the pupil progress review is inferred as a ‘pressurised meeting … . justifying how students did’ (Skeritt 2023, 567). My findings reveal examples of data reconstruction and co-construction by school leaders and teachers, as well as independently by teachers who tactically manage protocols to ensure a fitting presentation of pupil progress. The high-stakes status of these data appears to necessitate a shift in how to think about and interact with children, and more experienced teachers signalled opposition to the intimated fabrication:

We didn’t want to start falsifying results. We couldn’t always drive up standards in the way [the Headteacher] wanted us to. We were told ‘it’s about being aspirational’. So, we all questioned it [and we said] ‘we’ve got some children being predicted 9 to 10 points of progress in a year. I mean this is crazy … [it’s] ridiculous’. But when it came to it [the Headteacher said] ‘you need to think about your position in the school’ (when we weren’t making significant progress towards those results). We fought that off; got the union in. It broke the trust there.

(Shirley, Phase 2)

Despite the appearance of a limited appetite for dissidence in the context of appraisal, there are a few examples of subversion and resistance, albeit ‘controlled’. Here, Shirley’s responses reveal a ‘micro-act of resistance’ – a conscientious objection to the pressure of data falsification, or an attempt to ‘speak back to the numbers’ (Stevenson 2017, 540).

Teachers were often ‘set targets for the class but told [by the leaders] they were unachievable’; Harriet’s (Phase 2) response [to leaders] was ‘Why the hell are you giving them to me then? Implicit is the management’s direction, and expectation that teachers should inflate levels, and to ensure all involved ‘look good’, for example:

[The Head’s] exact words: ‘Do whatever you need to do to make your data look good’. So, I sat down and wrote down data with (A) taken out, with (A and B) taken out, or (C) taken out. I sat down in the meeting (with her) and she said ‘well, by my data, 60% of your class made 3 points of progress’. I said, ‘oh in my data … where I’ve taken out x/y’ it’s (higher than this) and she says ‘oh that’s fine then, good’. What a load of bollocks.

(Jimmy, Phase 3)

Here, the third reference to data ‘looking good’ exemplifies the manipulation of data sets to ‘best fit’ the picture of success. The data are engineered with some savvy re-calculations to include, or exclude particular pupil groups (A,B,C) prone to lower attainment until the required targets are fulfilled.

Conversely, some assessment data provoked a concern about looking too good and the challenge was to mediate data to ‘dumb down’ pupils’ attainment and progress. In one instance, unexpected ‘good’ data warranted a strategy to ameliorate the situation, and to deter possible attention from the educational local authority and Ofsted:

We had just over 40% of our kids get a level 3 and we usually get around 20%. So, we have to look at what [the statistics for] National and County were last year. And they were 29–30%. We can’t put 40% because Ofsted will go ‘how did you get that?’ It’s ridiculous to think you could trigger an inspection from having too good a result, but it could happen. I feel bad that some of those kids who are level 3 readers are going as a 2a. They’ve earned it, yet we can’t put them there.

(Tony, Phase 3)

The decision to ‘game’ the teacher assessments of KS1 SATS (reading tests) appears borne out of an anxiety of further Ofsted scrutiny: keen to avoid an early inspection, and queries about accelerated pupil progress, the data are adjusted. Interestingly, in this context, the use of the term ‘cheating’ was only used once; Jimmy referred to ‘the stuff that goes on with SATS’ - ‘cheating effectively’ (Phase 3).

In the same vein, one example highlighted the tactics deployed to manage pupils with special needs perceived as reducing the school’s percentage of acceptable levels of attainment. Particular pupil groups are viewed strategically: ‘we need to find a special school for them before they hit the end of the key stage’ (Alan, Phase 3). Like the secondary equivalent tactic of ‘off-rolling’ (Done and Knowler 2020), pupil groups are strategically managed to preserve acceptable data:

We have this hugely damaged ‘looked after’ kid dropped on us and he’s screwing everything up. In my heart of hearts, I want to ‘fix him’ but the other side of my brain says, ‘I need to move him on because he’s completely destroying reputations and statistics’. I hate that way of thinking.

(Alan, Phase 3)

As a deputy headteacher, Alan’s responsibility is to promote and monitor high standards in the school. Describing some of the most vulnerable children as ‘screwing everything up’ may compromise his philosophy on inclusion, but he implies there is no choice than to strategically manage these situations and pupils.

Performance related pay

Government policy that mandates for a close relationship between pupil progress data and teacher ‘performance’ and appraisal means the burden of respectable pupil progress is further compounded by performance management etiquette. As Rae lamented, ‘you’ve just got to get the data, it doesn’t matter how they get there, you’ve just got to make the progress’ (Phase 3). Whilst earlier data may point to the pupil progress meeting as daunting, in the context of performativity, and regular teacher appraisals, it may also be suffused with fear and stress:

There is the whole stress about your pay being connected with the data. I’m not saying I’m changing results but it is hard sometimes when you see a child so close to level 3 … … .‘is it or is it not’.

(Rose, Phase 3)

I’ve noticed the change. I think it’s the accountability and the pay. People are scared. It was [already] scary enough in Pupil Progress meetings (when the Head said), ‘why have they not made progress and what are you doing about it’?.

(Carl, Phase 2)

These data appear contrary to the idea that Performance Related Pay incentivises teachers and inspires recruitment, retention and increased morale (Hutchings 2021, 46). The fear might be construed in a variety of ways; as pressure to deliver results, as ‘worrying’ in relation to the wider educational landscape and of what teaching means (and might entail), but also as threatening to the individual’s professional identity and views of efficacy. As Ryan (Phase 2) notes, ‘with Performance Related Pay there’s even more lies going on. You’ve got to lie to get your money’:

[PRP] fails because people lie. (If) you start judging people on the levels they make, of course they’re going to make it up. I’ve been told I’ve got to get 85% (of pupils) in ‘the pink zone’ so I will get 85% [of pupils] in the pink zone. When we got our [new] classes, we were given this set of data and told ‘that child’s not really there, but he has to be there otherwise I don’t get my pay rise’

(Wilma, Phase 1)

This new teacher’s experience of school has incited derision about performance related pay and the arbitrary relationship to her school’s ‘creative’ colour-coded attainment levels. Subsequent to assessment reform, schools were encouraged to use their ‘freedom to choose their own approaches to formative and summative assessment’ to reflect emergent age-related expectations (McIntosh 2015, 16). Consequently, the disbanded national curriculum levels were substituted with alternative pseudo-levels (Earle 2019, 19). In Wilma’s school, these precarious colour-coded data-sets had vital currency for teachers’ performance management.

Like Shirley’s, Ben’s account highlights the possibility of more agentic conduct. His early years in teaching appear instructive about resisting pressure to inflate pupils’ progress, as well as the collegiality necessary to survive the vagaries of policy. Working alongside his year-group colleague, implied is his evolving agency to ‘take a stand’ - a phrase synonymous with resistance:

We made a stand (and) we both agreed we are not prepared to inflate levels. As it turned out, my class made ‘good’ progress. His didn’t so he got ‘dragged through the coals’ because of that and had to fight to get his incremental pay increase.

(Ben, Phase 1)

Despite the ‘compliance-based performance culture’ (Gewirtz et al. 2019, 520), his identity is maintained beyond the lens of results, and may be strengthened by his challenge to the establishment. He is, feasibly, a ‘child of accountability: schooled, trained, and now practising in contexts of routine accountability’ (Skerritt 2022, 6), but does not (yet) appear to ‘embrace the accountability regime’ (Skerritt 2022, 5).

The shifting stakes of in-school pupil data and the implications of failing to meet pupil targets are considered far-reaching. Findings point to the higher stakes of ‘everyday’ assessment data and of the emergence of strategies to manage them.

Discussion

Significant for my contribution to knowledge, the findings enable an insight to the meanings and implications of primary teachers’ work, and a specific contribution to the field of gaming. The discourse of gaming is further extended through the exploration of pupil progress meeting and the interactional nature of the associated encounters with school leadership.

Whilst there has been recognition of primary schools’ strategic management of the curriculum and end of key-stage tests (Coldwell and Willis 2017), my findings illustrate how primary teachers’ in-school assessment practices are subject to gaming. Teachers amass – and then act on – substantial data about pupils every day – some have become an essential constituent for the evidencing of pupil progress, and (thus) teacher effectiveness via performance management measures. Teachers in my study narrated accounts of fabricating data, sometimes expressed euphemistically as ‘inflate’, ‘falsify’, ‘lie’, ‘fake’ and ‘making it up’, in the name of ‘shaping their pupil data into the right form’ (Pratt 2016b, 903). I now explore some of the consequences of gaming ahead of, and situated within, the pupil progress meeting, and of implications for professional identity.

Policy enactment

There is no question standardised test data need to look good (and why), nor of the evidence these continue to be ‘gamed’ (Gewirtz et al. 2019; Prior et al. 2021). As data are ‘constructed as a private good for the teacher’ (Pratt 2016a, 506), the pressure to strategise or distort to enhance efficacy becomes more powerful; the increased emphasis on continuous pupil progress data and the associated tracking facilities and audiences raises the stakes here too. The fabrication of formative data like teachers’ marking and the associated status of pupils’ books is disquieting; Brady and Wilson similarly note the ‘forging of pupils’ handwriting’ to evidence compliance with assessment policies (2021, 7). Typically, the engineering of, or adjustment of (ostensibly) formative assessment in pupils’ books, is solitary in nature and contrasts with the collusion implied in the pupil progress meeting.

In the ‘performative school, work is a matter of normalised visibility’ (Page 2015, 1032), and teachers are ‘perpetually surveilled, judged and evaluated through a variety of means’ (Page 2015, 1044). However, the covert nature and marginalisation of the pupil progress meeting warrants review, not least because the depiction of the pupil progress meeting points to the event as a site of contestation and resistance. In my findings, in-school summative data appear prone to (what I term) interactional gaming – a mutually beneficial process performed between teachers and school leaders in the context of the pupil progress meeting. This meeting is sometimes referred to in the context of monitoring data and performance management (e.g. Bradbury, Braun, and Quick 2021; A. Braun and Maguire 2020; Earle 2019), but is not referenced in current policy or Ofsted documentation.

The meeting appears pivotal for teachers to ‘actively re-present both their practice and their being through data’ (Lewis and Holloway 2019, 37), and an opportunity for the ‘filtering down of high-stakes accountability from school leaders to classroom teachers’ (Brady and Wilson 2021, 9). The interactional nature of ‘making the data look good’ is worth reiterating for three reasons. The first relates to the uniqueness of the primary context. The individual primary teacher’s interaction with high-stakes data is usually mediated alongside the senior leadership team and head teacher. Here, the immediacy of leadership can be felt more keenly (consequent to the structures and size of the institution), and accountability and managerialism reposition the headteacher from (what I term) ‘pedagogue-in-chief’, to ‘manager’ (Sturrock 2021). The interface between managerialism and performativity (Ball 2003) generates a culture necessitating a different kind of leadership ethic, and arguably modified for the purpose of ‘playing the game’ with data. In the context of a private meeting with the senior leadership, the direction to reconsider or adjust data may be experienced as intimidating, with repercussions for staff dynamics and relationships. It is fitting to underline the pressures on leaders whose behaviour may also be viewed as strategic (Fuller 2019). This meeting may well be calibrated to the mutual benefits for both teachers and school leaders, designed to be ‘failing if they do not produce appropriate results’ (Bradbury, Braun, and Quick 2021, 149).

Secondly, and noteworthy for the rise of individualism, the class teacher is held accountable for pupils’ progress as well as for the strategies necessary to enhance both the pupils’ performance and their own. Underpinned by the discourse of performativity, Torrance argues, ‘neo-liberalism produces responsibilisation … and far over-emphasises the individual nature of responsibility’ (2017, 93). The dimension of performance-related pay is influential for the high-stakes in this context (Earle 2019). Indeed, ‘it is through assessment practices that teachers’ success, or lack of it, is largely defined’ (Pratt 2016a, 891). Fulfilling the conditions for a pay increase relies on strong pupil progress data, making the engineering of such statistics alluring for both the school and the individual teacher. ‘Truthfulness is not the point’ in this process of ‘creative accounting’ (Ball 2003, 224) – the primary teacher is ‘compelled by school leaders to manufacture spurious assessment data for the purposes of performance’ (Proudfoot 2021, 820). The implications of failing to meet pupil data-linked targets may be far-reaching; fear may have ramifications for the teacher’s sense of efficacy, well-being and job security and subsequent de-professionalisation (Perryman and Calvert 2020, 6).

Thirdly, my findings reveal something of the competitive positioning of teachers in the negotiations about pupil progress. For teachers working alongside colleagues in the same year group, the experience of the ‘pupil progress meeting’ can entail an element of comparison. Here, the dialogue between the head teacher and class teacher may promote or induce competition (Pratt 2016a). Raising questions about data, or admonishment for lack of pupil progress can position teachers as threatened, defensive and demoralised (Brady and Wilson 2021).

Looking good

As Ball (2003) suggests, policy reform equates to teacher identity reform, and in particular, high-stakes accountability protocols are changing ‘the character of teaching’ (Thompson and Cook 2014, 140), but what of the teachers themselves? In what ways do neo-liberal discourses of accountability and performativity potentially challenge or even re-orientate primary school teacher identity? What does it mean to game?

Stephen Ball imagined the quandaries posed by policy reform and the moral dilemmas and incumbent insecurities provoked by contradictory policy diktats:

Are we doing this because it is important, because we believe in it, because it is worthwhile? Or is it being done ultimately because it will be measured or compared? It will make us look good!.

(2003, 221)

The allure of ‘looking good’ is a repercussion of decades of standards-focused accountability reform. Whether or not the teachers’ accounts pointed to ‘feeling good’ is questionable as responses pointed to cynicism and disdain. Professional identity is vulnerable to the palpable threats of data-oriented appraisal – the tensions and contradictions between ‘good’ data, data ‘made good’ and ‘good teaching’ may create a ‘troubling sense of professional insecurity’ (A. Braun and Maguire 2020, 444), impact on wellbeing (Brady and Wilson 2021), and contribute to the broader issue of retention (Hutchings 2021). The ‘organisational pressure and political culture’ pivotal to gaming the system (Mizrahi and Minchuk 2021, 5), and the ‘marketised education policy manoeuvres, variously related to accountability and performativity’ (Thompson, Mockler, and Hogan 2022, 85) are influential for professional subjectivity.

The politicisation of data conceivably necessitates ‘acting politically’ – typically associated with self-serving and organisational politics which tally with game-playing behaviour. Simultaneously influenced by discourses of altruism, accountability and effectiveness, the individual teacher may experience gaming as a necessary professional requirement in the ‘re-engineering of the primary schooling terrain’ (Hall and Pulsford 2019, 242). Such ‘oblique compliance may be indicative of the formation of new kinds of agency and subjectivity’ (Souto-Otero and Beneito-Montagut 2016, 15). It is reasonable to understand gaming as resistance despite the apparent complicity with the school’s senior leaders.

‘Subjectivities and identities are not stable and the impact policies can have on teachers can vary’ (Skerritt 2022, 5); teachers’ experience of gaming may prove a composite of any of the above/following. Gaming may constitute a somewhat pragmatic ‘ambiguous accommodation to the demands of the neoliberal workplace’ (Page 2018, 387), perhaps reflect a ‘moral indifference’ (Thompson and Cook 2014), or an acquiescence to ‘doing without believing’ (A. Braun and Maguire 2020). Accountability protocols arguably facilitate the persona of the ‘cynical gamer that disrespect the rules of the market order’ (Done and Knowler 2020, 16). If teachers’ working lives are governed by a ‘data driven system’ (Brady and Wilson 2021, 57), this necessitates the acumen to game and to ‘literally fabricate oneself via data’. (Lewis and Holloway 2019, 38)

Undoubtedly, ‘data is underpinning a change in the way educators do their job’ (Thompson, Mockler, and Hogan 2022) and educators grapple with the disparities between their own personal view of professionalism and the professionalism demanded by a performative culture. Powerful for primary teaching is the discourse emphasising the intrinsic fulfilment gained through the rewards of working with young children Murray and Passy (2014). The ‘reconstitution of primary schooling’ (A. Braun and Maguire 2020, 444), and the accordant threats to the values and mission of primary schooling may have implications for professional identity (name deleted to maintain the integrity of the review process).

Reflection

My research captured primary teachers’ experiences of the increased pressures of high stakes assessment subsequent to the raft of 2010 policy reforms in England, and in a period of ‘policy storm’ in the early-mid 2010s (Bradbury 2018). Whilst my fieldwork and analysis were completed within a particular timeframe, it was orientated by the context of ‘datafication’ (Lingard, Martino, and Rezai-Rashti 2013), and the grip of data in schools, then and now. My research contributes to the ongoing international debate about how systems of accountability are a catalyst for the widespread production [and exploitation] of pupil data (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2022). My findings highlight the conflicts and pressure for primary teachers, and should prove relevant for understanding comparable cases nationally and internationally.

Research continues to point to the abundance, and ramifications, of high-stakes accountability in schools and usefully reiterates equivalent themes in my findings. Internationally, the appetite to understand the consequences of accountability culture on pedagogy is not diminishing e.g. in Hong Kong (Yan and Brown 2021), Australia (Thompson, Mockler, and Hogan 2022), USA (Taylor 2023) and Norway (Hatfield and Soløst 2024). Congruent with my research, recent research in the USA illustrates primary teachers’ experiences, and how they are ‘profoundly shaped by [accountability policies] and the neoliberal logics underlying them’ (Taylor 2023, 3). Parallel are studies exploring the associated pressures of data even in policy contexts of low-stakes accountability, e.g. Spain (Verger et al. 2020), Italy (Ferrer-Esteban and Pagès 2023) and Norway (Hatfield and Soløst 2024) and that raise questions as to the hitherto ‘watertight categories’ (Levatino, Parcerisa, and Verger 2024, 33) of high and low stakes accountability.

Conclusion

Accountability measures invariably intensify the grip of data in schools both in England and more widely, further propagating perverse incentives to tactically perform. In my study, ‘do whatever you need to make the data look good’ was found to be both an instruction from senior leaders and a tactic from class teachers, with implications for collegiality, trust and appraisal.

In the short-term, the further evolution of tactical assessment practices and ‘gaming’ in primary schools looks fit to continue as the top-down accountability pressures are exacerbated by post- COVID-19 Pandemic anxiety about school performance (Department for Education 2022). The pressure to increase SATS results arguably intensifies accountability burdens as well as induce tactics to strategically manage pupil data. The impetus to ‘make the data look good’ may prove even more compelling.

In the longer term, in England there may be grounds for optimism as high stakes accountability is subject to re-evaluation, not least regarding workload, pay-related accountability and teacher well-being. Consequent to the simultaneous onset of policy change, and imminent demise of performance-related pay (Department for Education 2024), and alongside the Ofsted review (Perryman et al. 2023), and further situated within the latest assessment recommendations (Wyse, Bradbury, and Trollope 2022) and ongoing pressure of the ‘More than a Score’ campaign (NEU, 2022), the landscape for high-stakes accountability appears less predictable. Eradicating the burden of PRP offers relief from the pressure of data-associated targets and could be meaningful for teachers’ experiences and perceptions of assessment-led accountability. In the review of assessment in English primary schools, ICAPE propose a series of recommendations including that the ‘assessment of pupils is clearly separated from the means to hold schools and teachers to account’ (Wyse, Bradbury, and Trollope 2022, 4). Whilst these are all longer-term aspirations, perhaps it is possible to imagine a time when ‘performativity’s deep discursive hold on educators’ (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2022, 465) may loosen.

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to Professor Andrew Hobson for his ongoing support and generosity in feedback, and to Dr Keith Turvey for comments on the final version. I am very grateful for peer reviewers’ constructive and valuable comments which have helped to strengthen this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Soo Sturrock

Soo Sturrock is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Brighton. She teaches on both undergraduate and postgraduate teacher education programmes and leads the MA Education programme. Her research interests include education and policy reform, primary teacher identity and initial teacher education.

Notes

1. White papers are policy documents produced by the English Government that set out proposals for future legislation (https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/white-paper/). ‘The Importance of Teaching’ (Department for Education 2010) sought to reform key elements of the education system including ‘the standards being set by curriculum and qualifications and the autonomy and accountability of schools’ (Ibid, 18).

Appendix H1

Table

Professional life phase (and years in teaching)	Pseudonym	Age	Age phase/Year group	Role
Phase 1 NQT resigned	Eleanor	20s	KS1/YR1	Newly Qualified Teacher
Phase 1 NQT resigned	Fiona	20s	KS2/YR3	Newly Qualified Teacher
Phase 1 2nd year	Barry	20s	KS2/YR6	Class teacher
Phase 1 2nd year	Lynn	30s	Early Years	Class teacher
Phase 1 2nd year	Nina	40s	KS2/YR6	Class teacher
Phase 1 3rd year	Sara	30s	Early Years	Class teacher
Phase 1 3rd year	Ben	20s	KS2/YR6	Class teacher
Phase 1 3rd year	Wilma	20s	KS2/YR4	Class teacher
Phase 1 3rd year	Ryan	30s	KS1/YR1	Class teacher
Phase 2 5th year	Harriet	30s	KS1/YR2	Class teacher
Phase 2 5th year	Verity	40s	Varied	Supply teacher
Phase 2 5th year	Carl	30s	Early Years	Class teacher
Phase 2 5th year	Beth	30s	KS1/YR2	Class teacher
Phase 2 6th year	Shirley	40s	KS2/YR5	Cover and Class teacher
Phase 3 8th year	Jimmy	40s	KS2/YR5	Class teacher
Phase 3 9th year	Glenys	50s	KS2/YR5	Cover and Class teacher
Phase 3 10th year	Alan	40s	N/A	Deputy Head Teacher
Phase 3 10th year	Rose	40s	KS1/YR2	Class teacher and School leader
Phase 3 10th year	Bryan (pilot data)	30s	KS1/YR1	Class teacher and School leader
Phase 3 11th year	Tony	40s	KS1/YR2	Class teacher School leader
Phase 3 14th year	Rae	30s	N/A	Special Needs Co-ordinator
Phase 3 14th year	Simon	40s	N/A	Head Teacher