High-Stakes Testing and Performance Tables

The DFE are changing the performance tables for schools because some schools have been 'game-playing' to maximise their position. Let's unpack that slightly.

Whenever there is a high-stakes accountability regime, whether that be in the NHS, the Police, Councils, or Children's Services, senior managers will consider how they can best use their limited resources to maximise outcomes. So ... waiting times in the NHS decreased ... Hurray! ... but at the expense of some sick people who had already gone beyond the waiting time and did not count ... Booh! ... So when we had 5A*-C GCSE that was what people aimed at, with special attention to the C-D borderline - extra resources were put into the marginal failures. And it worked - some young people who would have failed did instead succeed. When the goalposts shifted to include English and mathematics, the behaviours changed, and schools targeted resources at children who might get Grade D in those two subjects. Inevitably this targeting of resource meant that other students were getting less, and that's both the least able (who won't succeed whatever you do) and the most able (who will succeed whatever you do).