LEAGUE TABLES: Call for a performance tables update

The House of Commons' Public Accounts Committee said last week that assessment of schools' performance should take into account social and economic deprivation.

Their report, Making a difference: performance of maintained secondary schools in England, highlighted that when this was done, some schools moved from the bottom to the top 20 per cent of schools.

Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association welcomed any move that stopped the "stigmatisation" of schools. He said that the current system was "extremely damaging" and reinforced social divisions. "What is important is trying to ascertain whether a school is doing well by its pupils," he added.

For the first time last year, league tables included a value-added measure that focused on a pupil's prior attainment and measured progress between key stages. But Rogers said that this could be "quite misleading", as it did not distinguish between pupils with similar levels of prior attainment but different social and economic backgrounds.

He explained that a school's task of helping highly motivated pupils from immigrant backgrounds, for example, was not as great as motivating pupils from deprived backgrounds with very low levels of aspiration.

The Public Accounts Committee called on the Department for Education and Skills
to consider using data such as families in receipt of income support or working families tax credit. Eligibility for free school meals, was only a "partial measure of economic and social deprivation" it added.
School standards minister David Miliband said that new "value-added" information was widely welcomed, and that the DfES was planning to consult widely on extending value added to include factors beyond prior attainment.

A spokeswoman for the National Union of Teachers said: "It would be an improvement on a faulty system, but it doesn't make the system accurate - it won't change the problem that league tables don't compare like with like."

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