Nine to one - not as easy as ABC

I blogged at the Sutton Trust on the dangers of an increasingly complex accountability system

Back in 1995, I helped David Blunkett commit a heretical act – at least in the eyes of the teaching unions. With the help of the late David Frost and a closely argued column in The Times, we embraced the need for school performance tables. Yes, we would look at improvement and not just absolute results, but we would still publish both to hold schools accountable and to inform parents.

Over two decades on and we have a lot more data available to us. Admittedly some of it – the detail in the invaluable National Pupil Database – is restricted to those meeting stringent data protection rules. But parents can access a pretty good summary of how well a school is doing on the DFE website. The only problem is that it has become a lot more complex. And confused.

That confusion can only have been increased by the latest announcements from the DFE this week. This year is the first time that pupils will be judged on a new 1-9 scale, replacing the current A*-G scale. The idea is that this will allow finer judgements at the top where gaining a 9 will be a lot harder than an A* - indeed, Tim Leunig, the DFE’s chief analyst, mused to his Twitter followers that only two pupils in the country might get all top marks in the new system.

But it is not at the top that the confusion and concern has been concentrated. Rather it is at the borderline. An important feature of the new system was supposed to be an ending of the focus by schools on the dreaded D-C borderline. I’ve always been slightly bemused by this concern: after all, a C is far more impressive to an employer than a D and it is deluding young people to pretend that their E is of any use to them at all. There does, of course, need to be more focus on encouraging Bs and As, but as a minimum the C grade was a reasonable one.

And despite the introduction of Progress 8 – the hugely complex statistical measure of progress on which schools are now supposed mainly to be judged – yesterday’s news shows that the C grade remains important. Teachers have been struggling for months to understand whether a score of 4 or 5 will see them over the line in the new system.

Ministers had previously indicated that key school targets would focus on the tougher 5 grade – a good pass – but pupils who gained a 4 could be eligible for progression to the sixth form or college. On Tuesday, Justine Greening tweaked this yet again saying that the performance tables will include two pass rates – those getting a 4 and above and those getting a 5 or above – particularly for the English Baccalaureate scores.

Confused? Parents will be. But more importantly, the whole thing threatens to undermine nearly three decades of school reform. Of course, the 5 A*-C measure was not perfect. But sometimes statisticians need to recognise that perfection may not be attainable if it reduces clarity. The data was a compromise, but with floor targets and minimum standards it did a lot to drive up standards, especially in the half of secondary schools where fewer than 30 per cent of pupils gained five good GCSEs twenty years ago. The danger is all this change makes it impossible to see where improvements are being sustained.

That matters to narrowing the attainment gap as well as to social mobility, because many of the schools which were performing badly in the past had a disproportionate number of disadvantaged pupils. Their decent results have spurred them to further improvement. Progress 8 is a tough sell to explain how well a school is doing because of its complexity and because of the distorting impact of a few individual pupils Now the nine to one scale is layered on top. Comparisons over time become meaningless and past successes may appear lost. All this at the same time as many of these schools bear the brunt of cuts and changes in funding.

I’ll be honest: I was a bit sceptical about the English Baccalaureate when it was introduced, in part because of concerns that it would hurt those improved schools. But research we published last year showed that it benefited early adopter schools and improved opportunities for poorer pupils. However, the target of 90% or 100% of pupils achieving it is not realistic, and the case for a technical option remains strong. But as a way of simply demonstrating a pupil’s or a school’s success in core subjects, it has proved to be not a bad idea. And crucially it is comprehensible.

But that is not the case with these latest changes. If even the head of the exams regulator admits that parents and employers will be “confused” by the new system, and that communicating what it means will be a struggle, there are real problems ahead. And it is not just individuals and pupils that could be the losers, it is the credibility of an accountability system that has delivered real improvements in our schools.

Can we get a secondary consensus?

In my latest Sutton Trust blog, I look at the implications of last week’s announcements on secondary school exams and the curriculum by Michael Gove. This is written in a personal capacity.

Last Thursday’s unexpected U-turn by Education Secretary Michael Gove over his plans to replace GCSEs was presented by some as a sign that the most sure-footed cabinet minister in the coalition had come unstuck.

Yet a closer look at what actually happened suggests that though his plans may not have had the full rebranding he envisaged, they remain rather more intact than commentators have suggested.

While reformed GCSEs will no longer be known as EBCs, other changes announced last week could still have a profound effect on schools, what they teach and how they are assessed.

Alongside the confessional appearance in the Commons, Gove also unveiled his plans for the national curriculum, a radical change in the key league table measure for GCSEs and confirmed his plans for those exams to remain linear and become more demanding.

The draft national curriculum makes little change to range of subjects that students take – computing replaces ICT, but PSHE, citizenship and PE remain statutory requirements, even if their programmes of study are sharper and less prescriptive.

The level of prescription in subjects like history – which is now wholly chronological – and English which has a level of detail on grammar unseen since the literacy hour – stands in sharp contrast to the notion that schools would be increasingly free to decide for themselves what they would do. Teachers are freer to decide how to teach, but are much more circumscribed in what they must teach, at least until the age of 14 (and, at least for core subjects, to 16).

In that context, it was particularly surprising that Gove dropped plans to move towards a single exam board for each GCSE syllabus. He may have done so on the advice of Ofqual and worries about European competition law, but it was a reform that had wide support outside the exam boards and should be revisited.

The context for the new Gove curriculum was set out in a speech to the Social Market Foundation last Tuesday, where his belief that a core body of knowledge should lie at the heart of schools was set out more sharply than ever before, with the Conservative Secretary of State choosing the Italian Marxist father of Euro-Communism, Antonio Gramsci as his chief witness, alongside more familiar contemporary advocates such as the American academic E.D. Hirsch.

At the same time, Gove is proposing a number of changes to the league tables, which could have even more wide-ranging impacts on what schools teach.

Instead of measuring schools primarily on five good GCSEs – at C grade or above – including English and Maths, they will be measured on English and Maths grade Cs and on an average point score based on a student’s best eight subjects.

What might all this mean for social mobility and for disadvantaged students? On the one hand, there is a lot to be said for bringing greater clarity to the body of knowledge that children should learn. The curriculum had, arguably, lost the clarity it had in 2000 and earlier versions, and many will welcome this. It is also right to encourage greater breadth – and that would be welcome at A-level as well as GCSE, as Peter Lampl has argued recently.

The challenge – and test – for the new curriculum will be the extent to which it is adopted by academies, the 50 per cent of secondary schools that are free to choose most of their own curriculum, and the extent to which today’s parents expect them to adopt it.

There is a perfectly good argument – as Gove made in his SMF speech – that children need a body of knowledge if they are to benefit fully from acquiring the research and study skills that most teachers – and the evidence from the Sutton Trust/EEF toolkit – suggest can play a big role in boosting attainment. A false dichotomy has been created between knowledge and skills, and both need to be seen as an important part of children’s educational development.

Of course, for students who go to university, it is right that they should be encouraged to take a strong suite of academic subjects, and it is to be hoped that the new GCSEs have the rigour to bring an end to the soul-destroying annual ritual of criticising the achievements of young people at the moment when they learn how well they have done in their exams.

Yet a big gap in the Government’s thinking lies in what happens after the age of 14 to those for whom a more vocational or technical education would be more motivating. EBCs may be gone but the EBacc remains, and will lie at the heart of the 8-GCSE measure in the new league tables. For students taking 8 GCSEs, it is perfectly reasonable to expect them to take five EBacc subjects, and they now have a chance to have achievements in other subjects like art, technology and religious education recognised. This has pleased those lobbying for such recognition.

Kenneth Baker’s University Technical Colleges start students on technical and vocational pathways from age 14. Further education colleges will be able to recruit from that age. Yet because of the undoubted abuses of vocational equivalences in the past, all technical and vocational qualifications, regardless of depth and intensity, have equal weight in the league tables.

The Government still has to find a satisfactory way of recognising the achievements of those who take a more technical curriculum, and it should use the reformed league tables to do so. To argue this point is to be neither Luddite nor defeatist, but it is to recognise that for some students – a minority maybe but at all ability levels – an academic curriculum post-14 will not enable them to fulfil their potential.

There is a real chance to develop a lasting consensus on education, one that outlives changes in Government, and one that caters for the needs of every child at different phases of their education. Last week’s suite of announcements could herald a different approach. For that to happen, the consultations on the curriculum and league tables need to be as open to reasonable change as that on GCSE reform turned out to have been.

Turning the global league tables

Last week’s publication of a new global education league table by the Economist Intelligence Unit and Pearson raised some eyebrows with its claim that the UK’s education system now ranks sixth in the developed world.

After all, on the same day, the Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw was using the data from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to make a case that English schools must do better if we are to match global competitors in the future.

The UK scores around average in PISA for reading and mathematical literacy, and a little above average for scientific literacy, based on tests of 15 year-olds. This places UK schools 25th for reading, 28th for maths and 16th for science, out of 65 countries.

Pearson has aggregated this PISA data with other studies from the Trends In International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which measures international trends in mathematics and science achievement of 9 and 13 year-olds, and the Progress In International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) which just focuses on the reading achievement of 9 year-olds – those in fourth grade.

The Pearson Learning Curve report also includes some UNESCO data to create a ranking of countries that looks at both cognitive skills and educational attainment. For cognitive skills, they use PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS, and for attainment they use UNESCO data on adult literacy and OECD data on graduation rates at the end of secondary school and at university.

PISA and TIMSS/PIRLS measure different things and do so at different ages. The primary difference is that TIMSS/PIRLS looks at what you been taught in a particular subject and how much you have learnt, whereas PISA looks at what you are able to do with the science you have been taught. PISA is more about the practical application of your knowledge.

The Learning Curve report also draws wider conclusions and lessons for education policymakers, including the importance of good teachers, a strong pro-education culture and on the best ways to engage parents.

But how does it reach so different a conclusion from PISA on the comparative health of the UK education system? It does so quite easily, in fact, and it is all in the weightings. And in looking at how it reaches the conclusions it does, there are also lessons on how one should use such league tables.

First, on PISA, the Pearson/EIU index has fewer countries than PISA in its list, so removing those countries and only using Hong Kong for China (PISA includes Shanghai and Macao too) elevates the UK four places higher in reading and science and six places higher in Maths. The new index is more interested in a country’s relationship to the mean than its ranking, so bunching around the mean in PISA would also reduce ranking differentials.

Second, on PIRLS and TIMSS, England and Wales score significantly better on these tables (some of which exclude other major developed nations such as France, Finland and New Zealand) than on PISA. Although Scotland scores lower, the UK average remains strong. Because TIMSS has both Grade 4 and Grade 8 tests, the combined value of PIRLS and TIMSS is stronger than that for PISA.

And finally, although the UK is rated 6^th overall, it is only ranked 11^th for cognitive skills – those measured by PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS – and its higher rating on the overall table owes more to adult literacy and graduation rates.

Add in all these factors, and look at the weighting given to each factor in the report. The default weight for the Index is two-thirds to cognitive skills and one-third to educational attainment. Within the cognitive skills category, the Grade 8 tests’ score accounts for 60% while the Grade 4 tests’ score accounts for 40% (Reading, Maths and Science all account for equal weights).

 So, the PISA reading and Maths scores combined, where the UK is weakest, only account for 20% of a country’s ranking, and PISA science another 6.7%. But because PIRLS and TIMSS are available at Grade 4 and Grade 8, they will be worth 26.7% for the Grade 4 and 13.3% for the Grade 8, a total of 40%. The HE and adult literacy scores are worth a further 33.3% between them.

Perhaps a bigger issue than the rankings is what the tables do not reveal about education in the UK, particularly the absence of any measure in the Pearson/EIU table of the attainment gap or of social mobility. One recent OECD report, for example, said that only Russia and the Czech Republic had a more socially segregated schools system.

The big gaps in attainment between pupils on free school meals and their peers in GCSEs are another important indicator – other countries have narrower gaps in attainment, as we demonstrated at our social mobility summit in May.

And the rankings should also look at how well countries perform with their most able students. Sutton Trust analysis earlier this year showed that, in maths, just 1.7% of 15-year-olds attained the very highest PISA level (level 6), compared with an OECD average of 3.1%, placing England 26^th out of 34 countries.

The new index is an important step forward in consolidating international data. But any such league table is dependent on the quality and range of inputs. As the Economist Intelligence Unit and Pearson develop the index, they should consider adding measures of mobility and the achievements of the most able to give a fuller picture of the success of national education systems.

This posting first appeared at the Sutton Trust blog. It was also quoted by Anne McElvoy on the Economist Blighty blog.

Vocational vacuum: we need more than sneers and Aunt Sallies

I have no idea how many young people inflated their GCSE league table scores by doing horse care or fish husbandry qualifications. But I do know that the combined impact of removing the 'thousands' of courses no longer recognised for their GCSE equivalence by Michael Gove yesterday will be pretty minimal. There are two reasons why. First, most of the improvements since 1997 - an increase in numbers gaining 5 good GCSEs or equivalents, including English and Maths, from 35 to 58 per cent, were the result of a big improvement in the numbers gaining Maths and English GCSEs, and not the result of gaming or of vocational qualifications. A quick look at the DFE's own data confirms this to be the case. And second, those that used vocational qualifications, often to encourage improvements in English and Maths by gaining confidence in a more practical course first, tended to use BTECs and OCRs, which will remain valid in a significant and welcome retreat by the Government, although less valuable in the league tables.

But these facts were a little beyond the slightly hysterical reports on the BBC News and the breathless sneering of John Humphrys yesterday morning. In the process, they left unanswered the question that has been ducked constantly by this Government over what vocational qualifications should be available to 14-16 year-olds and how they should be delivered. Alison Wolf doesn't really think that practical courses have much place before 16, and she would limit their role to 20% of the curriculum, whilst arguing simultaneously that more students should be taught full-time in further education colleges from the age of 14. Lord Baker was on the radio this morning waxing lyrically about his university technical colleges, declaring that 40% of their course content would be practical. UTCs take students from ages 14 to 19. His disdain for Wolf's position on this issue is no secret in Whitehall; the feeling is said to be mutual.

At the same time, beyond the grudging acceptance of BTECs and OCRs implicit in yesterday's supposed cull, the Government has little sense of what should be available to young people turned off by academic subjects at an earlier stage. The English Baccalaureate subjects have plenty to commend them for perhaps a majority of students, but achieving English and Maths with more practical courses may be a better goal for others. Labour's Diplomas generally became too complex and never took off, though some like ICT and engineering had industry credibility. Perhaps we now need, in addition to the BTECs, a new range of junior apprenticeships, with real progression built in, and clearly linked to proper career paths. But start them at 14 - with English and Maths - and not at 16. That's where Wolf's FE college proposals could play a big role.

But for now, the Government has really nothing useful or constructive to say about vocational education. Alison Wolf claimed that young people were being betrayed by qualifications of little value in later life. Perhaps they were. But they are certainly going to be betrayed a lot more if the Government can't get its act together to recognise the need for good practical alternatives for those who may sway the ranks of the truants and excluded if their needs are not met within the education system in good time.

Primary schools: the right target?

Today's primary school league tables reveal that there are 1310 schools - about 1 in 12 of those reporting results - that are below the Government's floor target of 60% of pupils getting a level 4 in English and Maths. The government is right to focus on attainment at the end of primary school, as those not reaching this standard are unlikely to get good GCSE results later on. They are also right to include a progress measure within their target to address those schools that are coasting.

Floor targets were introduced by the Labour government and have been a significant success story, particularly in secondary schools, where they have helped raise the game of many. After the substantial improvements in primary school results between 1995 and 2000, the result both of stronger accountability measures and the emphasis provided by Labour's literacy and numeracy strategies, there were substantial improvements in test scores in both English and Maths. And while progress slowed for several years in the early 2000s before the Rose report renewed an emphasis on phonics, today's results show 82 per cent reaching Level 4 in English and 80 per cent in Maths (and 74 per cent in both). In 1995, the figures [pdf: Table 1] were 49 per cent and 45 per cent respectively. Whatever today's failings - and there are still a quarter of pupils who are not making the grade in one or both subjects - it is no mean achievement of thousands of schools and their teachers.

The problem is greatest for the poorest students in the weakest schools. Analysis for the new Educational Endowment Foundation based on last year's data has shown that only 40% of pupils on free school meals in below target schools gain a level 4 in English and Maths compared with 57% of FSM pupils in other schools and 81% of those not receiving FSM in non-target schools. Those are huge gaps, and a lot of work will be needed to close them.

The Government has rightly extended the academies programme to the primary sector, and is requiring the worst primaries to become academies. It is right to want them to link with strong sponsors. But it needs to strike a balance here: there are to be 1000 National Leaders of Education by 2015, and many of those can provide the challenge and help needed to improve schools, especially those that are improving and are close to the target. Mergers and federations provide opportunities that schools may embrace for financial as well as educational reasons. With a still limited capacity among sponsors, their efforts need to be well focused on the persistent low attainers and to be properly targeted.

But ministers have also missed a trick with their pupil premium. It was announced this week that the premium paid for FSM pupils will rise from £488 to £600 per pupil in 2012-13, with eligibility extended to those who may previously have been in receipt of free school meals. The slow rate of increase suggests it is unlikely the premium will reach Nick Clegg's promised level of £2,500 a year by 2015, but more importantly there are far too few levers with the premium, as there is no element of reward or sanction linked to the performance of FSM pupils. Ministers are very keen on the power of accountability, but ignore its lagging effect. More improvements could be secured if schools could see that the premium was genuinely linked to progress.

The basics matter enormously, and the biggest gainers from an emphasis on improving them will be the poorest pupils in these target schools. But the Government must make better use of its limited levers and restricted remaining resources if it is to be successful.

Cameron is right about coasting schools, but wrong that Labour 'hid' this data

Why does David Cameron ruin a perfectly good argument with some petty partisan point-scoring? Today's article by the PM in the Daily Telegraph argues that some schools in leafy suburbs and shires perform less well than they should do, and are a bit complacent about it. All of which is true. It is also the case that the coalition are publishing more data than before, but it is nonsense to suggest that this data was deliberately 'kept under wraps' by the Labour government.

In fact, Labour greatly increased the amount of data that was published about schools, including in the league tables. It introduced measures of school improvement, as well as raw data. It also made available plenty of information to the Fischer Family Trust and other organisations that provide most schools with targets - those that strive for the top quartile in FFT are the ones that are not failing their students. With freedom of information, there was plenty of other information available too.

But there is a balance to be struck here. There is a good reason to have some limit to the number of elements in the league tables if they are to be readily understood. People should be encouraged ro read them alongside Ofsted reports. Newspapers and other media rarely publish all the data as it is. The issue for Government is to decide where the focus should be if such publication is to drive improvement. Michael Gove has already accepted the measure introduced by Labour of five good GCSEs including English and Maths as desirable for at least half of students in all schools, and as a goal for 80% of all students. This was a new measure introduced by Labour in 2005 as a way of ensuring that all pupils were entered in the basics. Together with floor targets, it has driven substantial improvement, including in London.

Cameron is right that there may be a temptation to focus on D-C borderline students. But this is not a bad thing in itself: schools certainly should ensure that students heading for a D are helped to achieve a C, as this will be worth much more to them in later life, But, of course, they should equally ensure that B/A borderline students work for an A. Any good school will do this, in part because of the revolution in data and individual targeting introduced by Labour. And Ofsted should pick up on it if it isn't happening.

But there is a separate issue about the effect of some of the new measures being introduced by the Conservatives, and it is not obvious that they have got these right. The English Baccalaureate could have a beneficial impact if it sees more academically minded students taking a foreign language, and an earlier push by Labour has already seen a big uplift in triple science, which is continuing. But while students should learn history (my own degree subject) and geography, it is by no means obvious that they will be of greater benefit to every student than engineering, technology or computer science. The only difference is that the former appear in the new league table measure at the expense of the latter. League tables can create perverse incentives no matter the intentions.

Equally, it is important that the PM's drive doesn't prevent us from seeing the wood for the trees. There is a very good reason to focus on the five good GCSE measure for weaker schools, and it has been the backbone of many academy improvements and those in London. But introduce too many measures, without any sense of their respective importance, and it becomes a lot harder for parents to compare schools. This happened with Labour's Contextual Value Added measure that the coalition is replacing with a less complex measure of value added. So, it is good that the new league tables will show us how well schools are working for pupils at different attainment levels. But let's make sure that in the process we don't substitute a fog of statistics for true focus.

Hidden by the hacking: end-of-term education manoeuvres

With the eyes of the world turned elsewhere, the education department has been performing a few subtle U-turns that could save it further embarrassment later on.

First, they effectively ditched the whole idea of a National Funding Formula yesterday, as they bowed to the local government lobby and launched a consultation to continue using local factors, effectively a simplification of the existing formula. While many headteachers favour a formula that reduces the extraordinary anomalies that exist between schools in similar circumstances, but across council boundaries, it was always going to be a tall order to introduce the change at a time of funding cuts. There would, of course, have been many howls of outrage if the cuts had been even more severe. But now, even academies and free schools will have their funding tied to local formulas, albeit with the more generous funding that comes from not taking local authority services. Sensibly, they propose to strengthen school forums, but this will need to be more than cosmetic and to avoid gaming, it should have to gain support from a majority of secondary and a majority of primary schools for anything beyond the basic formula. The shift was obscured by a more contentious statement on Building Schools for the Future, where Michael Gove said he would do what he intended all along.

Second, while ministers have clung to the English Baccalaureate in its current form in the league tables, they have announced that the existing vocational equivalences for GCSEs will continue for two years. Had they dropped them quickly, there would have been huge problems for schools adjusting, akin to the outrage caused when the EBacc was introduced retrospectively. However, they have missed a chance to add a Technical Baccalaureate to the mix, something that Kenneth Baker and Andrew Adonis have joined many heads in arguing for. The two year vocational hiatus should allow time to think again on this: but students starting their GCSE options in September need to know what their qualifications will be worth, as do their schools.

Signs of success

The coverage of the league tables today is littered with predictable claims of 'failure' across the system, doubtless stoked by coalition ministers anxious to exaggerate the scale of their task. But one simple figure stands out: there are now just 82 out of 3200 secondary schools in the entire country where fewer than 30% of pupils get five good GCSEs including English and Maths. In 1997, there were over 1600 such schools. In anybody's book, that ought to be a cause for celebration. And for Michael Gove, it should be too. Because a lot of that improvement took place as a result of Labour policies that he has wisely decided to continue - academies and the London Challenge approach of consultant heads helping others, together with tough floor targets (they were, it has to be said, also helped by extra resources, a part of the equation largely missing these days). It is plain daft for the press to label as failing any school that doesn't meet any target set after pupils sat their GCSEs. But the fact that the 30% floor target has dramatically cut those below that benchmark suggests that a 35% benchmark can also help shift the baseline. So, today is a sign that real reform can lead to real improvements, at least for many. That's the true lesson of today's league tables.

Errors with EBacc haste

Tomorrow's league tables will contain a new measure. In addition to the core data on the number of students gaining five good GCSEs, with and without English and Maths, there will be a column for what the Education Secretary Michael Gove calls the 'English Baccalaureate'. This is not as yet a new qualification. Instead it is a reckoning of the proportion of GCSE students who gain a C grade or above in a combination of English, Maths, Science, Languages and History or Geography. As a fan both of the International Baccalaureate - which the education secretary is making easier to access - and of the use of performance tables to encourage change in the system, I might be expected to support this move. But I believe it has been seriously mishandled and is danger of having perverse consequences for the coalition's wider education goals. Here's why.

First, the decision to add this figure to the tables was formally announced just seven weeks ago, after students had sat their GCSEs for 2010. Schools were not given a chance to change their behaviour, to encourage more pupils to do history or French. So, if its purpose is to encourage such a change in behaviour, it is a big mistake to introduce the measure before anyone could seriously be expected to do so. It would have been more sensible to have linked it to the 2012 tables. That way, there might have been a chance for schools that had focused on other subjects to provide their students with a greater chance of doing languages or humanities. In other words, if the goal is to encourage a greater take-up of traditional subjects -not an ignoble aim - the result may be to create a huge wave of anger as schools find themselves 'named and shamed' for failing retrospectively.

Second, there is some perversity in the choice of subjects. For some reason, applied French and some applied Sciences are excluded. It may be that ministers believe that applied subjects are less worthy than traditional subjects. But, with languages in particular, if ministers seriously wish to see a re-engagement with modern languages (and the inclusion of Ancient Hebrew whilst excluding applied French seems especially perverse) then they should be encouraging the exam boards to develop an entire suite of rigorous but applied languages courses. After all, the best way to persuade a teenager the relevance of languages is to show that it improves their chances of working in the tourism industry, the City or business travel. And while reading Moliere in the original may be a noble aim, the revival of languages requires a bit more hard-headed business sense, with as one leading business figure said to me yesterday, a strong push on Spanish and Mandarin rather than French or German.

Third, the Government's attitude to the vocational remains unclear. It is true that some vocational qualifications have become overrated in their GCSE equivalence. But such qualifications are invaluable in engaging otherwise disengaged students to study, and many schools and academies use them as leverage to get students taking other more traditional GCSEs, including English and Maths. It is vital that ministers clarify whether or not they will have any value in future tables. By all means, cut the tariff - most heads would agree - but most are certainly not worthless and should not be so treated.

The real danger of tomorrow's tables is that the hasty move to a new measure obscures the genuine improvements that have taken place as a result of two programmes introduced by Labour that have been continued by the coalition. The first is the rapid improvement of academies in disadvantaged areas: many have remarkable scores using the five GCSEs incl English and Maths measure. They deserve the highest praise, not to be bashed by the press for failing something for which they were never invited to compete. The second is the rapid rise in results for the lowest achieving schools: it is likely that fewer than 100 schools will have less than 30% of their pupils getting the five GCSE benchmark, compared with half of all secondaries or 1700 schools when John Major left office. That owes a lot to floor targets, extended to 35% by Gove in his White Paper. Again they deserve praise and encouragement.

It is vital that ministers make two things clear when they publish their tables. The first is that schools will be judged on their new EBacc only after 2012 and its publication now is purely for the purposes of statisical comparison. The second is that schools that have exceeded Labour's benchmark deserve credit, and give a target date for achieving their new 35% benchmark. Unless they do, they will allow genuinely successful schools, including many of the academies they seek to extend, to be pilloried unfairly as a result of their ill-thought through decisions.

How abolishing league tables hit Welsh standards

A fascinating new report from Bristol University shows that by scrapping performance tables, the Welsh Assembly made a serious mistake in 2001. I had already started to notice the impact when I debated the issue in the TES at the time. Now, this damning report has demonstrated that the absence of serious pressure on secondary schools has reduced the average GCSE candidate's attainment by the equivalent of almost two GCSE grades compared with their English counterparts. The report said:

We find that the reform significantly and systematically reduces school effectiveness. We find systematic, significant and robust evidence that abolishing school league tables markedly reduced school effectiveness in Wales. The impact is sizeable: a fall of 1.92 GCSE grades per student per year.

Moreover, the impact was worst on the lowest performing schools with the poorest and lowest ability ones most impacted. It was probably compounded by the absence of academies and the National Challenge. This is the strongest evidence yet of the value of performance tables and published data. As Professor David Reynolds says, the Welsh Assembly should consider their reintroduction.

And do so without delay.

Primary results

In 1997, just 53% of pupils reached level 4 - the 'average' standard created by the Conservatives that David Blunkett decided should be Labour's ambitious expectation - in the national tests at 11 in English and Maths combined. This year, 72% reached that standard, according to the latest performance tables published today.

What that means is that a Government which the right-wing press insists has 'failed' on education has presided over a situation where 110,000 more pupils achieved the expected standard this year than would have done so had results peaked in 1997.

There has been a small dip this year - probably as a result of a toughening of standards with the removal of the borderlining process - but improvements have been slow generally in recent years. So, the government - and the opposition - should not lose sight of the need to focus as much attention on poorly performing primaries as it does on weak secondaries, particularly in the crucial Key Stage 1 years.

There is a real danger that schools lose focus on the basics with the demise of the literacy and numeracy strategies, unless proper kitemarked alternatives - that include synthetic phonics - are introduced. Where a primary is failing, it must be open to takeover by a stronger school or academy. And there must be no let up in independent testing, floor targets (minimum standards) or the publication of results. If we are to see more primary progress, these are the basics that matter.

Balls should put children's futures before the teaching unions

Until yesterday, Ed Balls had commendably resisted attempts by the teaching unions to scrap accountability, by refusing to abolish testing and league tables. Yesterday, he announced pefectly reasonably that teacher assessment results would be published in league tables alongside test scores. What was unreasonable was his suggestion that Key Stage 2 tests could go, in a shameful attempt to curry favour with the teaching unions.

Primary schools face one set of external tests. They are vital for parental confidence, Ofsted inspections and public accountability. Doubtless many of the assessments will match the test scores, which is as it should be. But if the system becomes entirely self-policing, the dynamics would change considerably. There would be no real pressure to achieve in the basics, and this will particularly hurt boys' achievement in English. It will also hurt standards in primary education, where accountability has been important in the improvements over recent years.

I have been critical of Michael Gove's proposals to shift the tests to the start of secondary school, partly because it too was an attempt to appease the unions, but also because it would delegitimise the results as secondary teachers have an interest in marking down pupils at the start of secondary (Gove has since suggested that he would probably go for external marking). Both Balls and Gove should make clear their unequivocal support for externally set and marked national tests, and stop putting the interests of the teaching unions ahead of children's futures and school standards.

This post was quoted in the TES.

The future of league tables

Whatever happens at the next election, schools will be subject to performance tables. Labour is proposing to grade schools according not only to their exam results, but also their wider extra-curricular activities and what parents think about them, with a new report card. Yesterday, the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove proposed that the existing tables be skewed so that schools get more marks for physics and no marks for vocational subjects.

Gove seemed to confuse several things in his remarks on league tables, and his attempt to suggest 'all was awful' drove him into the realms of hyperbole. First, he ignored the fact government has already changed the 5A-C benchmark by focusing on those schools that achieve the benchmark including English and Maths. That has changed the rankings considerably. Second, he ignored the fact that there is already a GCSE points score in the tables, though only the Guardian uses it for its rankings. Newspapers compile league tables, government provides the information. And third, he ignores the changes to A-levels that will mean tougher exams and more open-ended questions next year. These were part of a package introduced by Alan Johnson and Tony Blair.

That said, Gove makes a reasonable point when he argues the importance of international rankings, though he ignores those tables where England has done better. And there is a perfectly good case for giving schools an incentive to sit A-level students in tougher subjects like physics by giving them extra credit in point scores for those subjects. I also agree with the idea of having league tables based on university success rates, something the Sutton Trust has proposed.

However, the idea that schools should get no credit in mainstream league tables for vocational qualifications is wrong-headed and dangerous. Some such courses were over-credited at GCSE in the past, but that shouldn't prevent schools being recognised when they help practically-oriented students to do well. Not every pupil will be going to university, let alone Oxford or Cambridge; many may want to go on to apprenticeships or vocational degrees. And such courses often have a very good employment record. Of course, the qualifications should be rigorous, and any credits appropriate. There must be a place for both the academic and vocational. But if schools are not incentivised to guide pupils towards the most appropriate courses for them, we will end up with students given advice to take academic options as inappropriate as the advice being given to some academically able students to steer away from hard academic subjects.

This post also features on the Public Finance blog.

The teachers' MOT is a good idea

The final White Paper package showed imagination, with the five-yearly teachers' MOT providing a surprise addition on the day. It makes sense to ensure teachers' skills are up-to-date, though it will be important that the focus is on what matters to good teaching, and not on simply reinforcing passing fads. But given the reluctance of too many governing bodies or heads to remove incompetent teachers, it is potentially a good move. And it is good that the government apparently plans to continue to publish performance table data alongside the Report Card: all the data should be on a single government website if it is genuinely to be accessible. More details are obviously needed on what is to replace the Primary Strategy in terms of quality and pressure to improve, and it remains to be seen how good School Improvement Partners are in their extended role, but with the reinforcement of the importance of trusts and academies, this is a reforming package. It places a considerable onus on the Tories now to give real detail about how they would do things differently.

Keep tests and tables

I have a column in today's Independent arguing the case for keeping primary school tests and the importance of those results continuing to be published nationally. You can read it here.

Test and publish

When David Blunkett experienced the wrath of militant teachers at the NUT conference in 1995, the NASUWT's then general secretary Nigel de Gruchy ensured that the shadow education secretary had a standing ovation the following week when he turned up at their conference. So it was no surprise to read tongue-in-cheek reports today that NASUWT would strike if the tests for 11 year-olds went, a neat juxtaposition with the NUT's rallying call for a boycott of the tests by its members.

But behind the headlines there are two problems. The first is a headache for Ed Balls. He wants to move to a system of testing when ready, which would probably involve teachers in more work than the current tests, as there would be several testing opportunities each year; though the NASUWT objections are also to the NUT's absurd idea that the tests should be marked by the teachers themselves. There are good arguments for the Balls change, as well as the status quo.

There is a second problem that should worry us all. Keep tests, but scrap tables, say NASUWT. DCSF doesn't itself publish league tables. Its search engine directs you to individual school results. You can also see in an alphabetical list how those results compare with other schools if you search by local authority. Newspapers compile the tables using discs supplied by the DCSF. What NASUWT is demanding is that the government censors the information it supplies newspapers and the public. That is no more tenable than ditching the tests.

Report cards in the balance

John Dunford, the thoughtful leader of the Association of School and College Leaders, has given a measured account of the potential benefits of the Government's planned report cards for schools, at his association's annual conference.

But the ASCL has unanimously rejected the idea of grading schools on an A-E scale. However, without a simple scale with which parents can compare schools, the report cards are in danger of confusing rather than assisting with accountability.

This is not to say that report cards are without problems. Unless there is reasonable alignment between grades, minimum test and exam scores, and Ofsted inspections (which may only take place every six years) the cards could become an excuse for poor performance. Of course, a measure of progress is also important, but so are absolute results too. So, in developing the idea, it is not only important that the Government has a straightforward way of rating schools, it is equally important that schools are not able to pick and choose different ratings.

Some good GCSE news

There is always a negative spin put by the media on any set of government statistics, good or bad, which makes the recent protestations of the Guardian of Statistical Integrity so laughable. But any fair reading of today's GCSE data shows some real improvements in the system (although of course there is still much to do).

There are now just 440 schools with fewer than 30% five good GCSEs - including English and Maths - compared with 1600 when Michael Gove's lot were still in power (he has the cheek to bemoan the fact that "too many children are still being educated at schools which the prime minister classes as 'failing".)

Equally impressively, academies are leading the way, with improvements overall at twice the national average last year including English and Maths, and a 15-point improvement since 2001 in some of the poorest schools in the country. (The improvements are bigger still for any GCSEs).

I don't imagine there will be much cheering in the media for these results. But the teachers and pupils in the schools involved deserve real credit for their achievements.

Beverley Hughes is right to defend tests and tables

Beverley Hughes stood her ground well against the heckling of an audience of NAHT activists on Monday, when she defended tests and tables. Headteachers have been one of the biggest recipients of improved pay since Labour came to power. It is extraordinary that their activitists should turn around and demand the abandonment of the main tools of accountability in return. Bev has been a good children's minister, bringing a harder edge to a notoriously woolly area of policy. Her strong defence of testing and tables should earn her the gratitude of parents, pupils and anyone who cares about education standards.

The down to earth approach to league tables

In today's Daily Telegraph, Martin Stephen, the Master of St Paul's with whom I had the opportunity to debate league tables on Radio 4 yesterday, asks 'what planet [I] am living on' when I say that 'league tables help to drive up standards'? The answer is: one rather closer to where the majority of our young people are educated than St Paul's.

First, the data derived from the tables is used by most state schools to set individual and school targets. They are helped to do so by organisations such as the Fischer Family Trust and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, which allow them to compare like with like, but show how much more ambitious many schools can be. There is no question whatsoever that this is driving up standards. The only reason why this data is available is because it is collected by the government. If it is collected by the government, it must also be published. That is what the newspapers use to create their league tables.

Second, when primary tables were first published in 1997, few parents knew much about how well - or poorly - their primary schools were doing. Their publication showed just how many coasting schools there were, prompting measures that led to a real improvement in literacy and numeracy standards. Without comparative data, there would not have been that improvement.

So, the data collected for league tables does help drive up standards in many schools; though, I am prepared to concede that they may not do so in schools where the pupil who fails is the one without 5 As at A level.