§ Mr. HobanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how value added measures will be used to determine action to be taken in(a) individual schools and (b) local education authorities. [152307]
§ Mr. MilibandValue added information on individual schools is published within the DIES School and College Performance Tables. The data may be used by schools and local authorities, alongside other information, to evaluate their performance in relation to pupils' progress. Local education authorities may augment the published information by providing schools with additional value added data, for example in relation to the performance of individual departments.
765WThe Government are keen to promote intelligent accountability of performance by individual schools as a key step in self-evaluation, and in order to identify areas where improvements may be needed. Value added data may also identify strong areas of the curriculum, and therefore examples of best practice, where expertise may be shared within schools, and with other schools. The Pupil Achievement Tracker, supplied by the DfES, enables schools to benchmark their value added performance against other schools with similar characteristics.
§ Mr. HobanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what value added score(a) a school and (b) a local education authority will need to achieve to be judged as satisfactory. [152335]
§ Mr. Miliband[holding answer 2 February 2004]Independent judgments about both schools and LEAs are principally a matter for Ofsted, through the inspection system. While an Ofsted judgment is likely to take into account value added criteria, the overall decision will be made on the basis of a wide range of inspection evidence.
The Government have not set any upper or lower benchmarks in relation to published value added scores, but it is recognised that schools with scores at the lower end of the distribution for schools with similar levels of prior attainment are likely to be underperforming.