KRM fails the Oxford Challenge

As a parent, and part time teacher in Oxford schools, I have witnessed first hand the failed introduction of a promising, but flawed, model of learning to support the most disadvantaged kids in Oxford City.

Specifically commenting on the KRM mathematics intervention, this post will argue that Oxford City Council has failed to engage with schools and the communities they serve to assess the value of this programme, and let down teachers, TAs, parents and kids.

Having recognised that results were spectacularly bad in a city the size and with the advantages of oxford, the city council spent an unknown, but substantial amount of money, on an unproven, disruptive and poorly delivered model of intervention for literacy and mathematics in schools in the city. Recent trumpeting of success by the council cannot hide the unresolved issues, especially in Maths .

Now, I am often a fan of radical approaches, and even of taking risks in education. However, I have also learned to fail quick and learn fast, and to expect rigorous assessments, on a range of measures.

I have only seen the maths aspect of the KRM approach, so all my comments are based on this alone.

I have attended ‘training’ by the KRM team, used it in class, looked at the results, talked with colleagues, parents, and both mine and others children about KRM. In the absence of any real objective, peer reviewed research in the programme, I have had to draw my own conclusions. While KRM Maths is not without merit, and I would accept that it has done some good, I believe any project which focussed on improving the dire results in the city would have done the same amount of good!  Here are my comments on the weaknesses of the KRM programme as I have seen it:

1. The evidence for the effectiveness and quality of KRM was / is almost non-existent.
2. The intellectual underpinnings of the KRM (maths) approach are weak and founded on a collection of theories that are only held together by overvalued Intellectual Property.
3. There is some good in the KRM maths system, but the extremely poor quality of the CPD and ‘support’ materials have considerably reduced the impact of the intervention.
4. Kids are bored of KRM. Most teachers hate it. Most of the headteachers are unconvinced. Parents have found it to be a huge barrier to engaging with their kids work at school.

5. The basis of the  delivery model is that the KRM approach to maths must be kept ‘pure’, out of the hands of TAs and parents, and that the model is inflexible.

I could (and would be happy to) go into more detail on any of these points, but the biggest problem with KRM maths, for me, came when the creator of this approach, Jonathan Solity, stated that the success of their intervention could only be assessed by KRM measures. This worried me enormously, and led to this post.

If the education team at Oxford City were to talk to parents,teachers and kids …and look into the poor quality of the training, support and principles of this approach, rather than scrabbling about for a quick fix to up results in the short term… then they would ask for their money back, and invest it into proper teacher CPD.

Oxford County Council -KRM Maths does not add up. Just ask the kids!