Moving into a new era of school accountability

The English Baccalaureate

The Secretary of State has announced that the make-up of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) will stay as originally proposed and that pupil attainment in the EBacc will continue to be published in school performance tables.

This means that the EBacc will continue to comprise English, maths, two sciences, history or geography and an ancient or modern foreign language.

Performance in the EBacc subjects in 2010 was included in the performance tables published in January 2011.  This caused something of a furore since it was neither expected nor anticipated.  There was also considerable concern about the outcome: in 2010, 15.6% pupils achieved C or above in the five EBacc subjects. However, from the government’s point of view, publication seems to have had the desired effect.

Figures published by the DfE at the end of August, show a significant increase in the proportion of pupils taking these subjects which the DfE argues are valued by universities and employers. Whatever they may think of the qualification, most secondary schools seem to be assuming that the EBacc is here to stay.

Statement of Intent 2011

In July, the DfE published its annual Statement of Intent 2011. This sets out the key indicators against which a school’s performance will be judged.  T

There will be several important changes to the data to be published in the performance tables:

·         The headline indicators that define the floor standards at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 remain (proportion of pupils achieving Level 4 in English and maths at Key Stage 2 and proportion of pupils achieving 5 good GCSEs including English and maths at Key Stage 4), as does performance in the EBacc.

·         Context value added (CVA) measure will be replaced by a value added (VA) measure showing the progress pupils have made from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4 and in the EBacc subject areas. This VA score will be based on a pupil’s best eight results in GCSE attainment. 

·         The performance tables will also provide more information about the performance about particular groups of pupils, focusing in particular on the attainment of disadvantaged groups of pupils, pupils on free school meals, looked after children, pupils with English as an additional language in comparison with their peers to demonstrate a school’s success in narrowing the attainment gap for these pupils.

The full document is available here and is well worth a read.

The future of GCSE subjects

Following the recommendations made in the Wolf review of vocational education, the DfE has announced that, from 2014, only current GCSEs and vocational qualifications that meet new criteria will be recognised in the performance tables. All of these qualifications will count equally: currently, some qualifications are worth more than one GCSE in the tables.

The DfE is currently consulting on what these criteria should be. The government is proposing that all full course GCSEs, established iGCSEs and AS levels should continue to count in the tables.  It is proposed that other qualifications should only count if:

·         they have a proven track record: only qualifications that have been taught for at least two years with good levels of take up among young people aged 14-16 should be included;

·         they offer pupil progression into a broad range of qualifications post-16 rather than a limited number in one or two occupational areas;

·         they are the size of a GCSE or bigger;

·         they have a substantial proportion of external assessment; and

·         they have grades ( qualifications with only a pass or fail should not be accepted).

In these circumstances, it remains to be seen whether many schools will continue to offer courses leading to qualifications that are not included in the performance tables.