Lord Lucasasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their estimate of the proportion of children in comprehensive schools who are subject to "setting", and on what data that estimate is based.
§ Baroness BlackstoneThe information requested is not collected centrally by the Department for Education and Employment. However, the following information has been provided by Ofsted. Between September 1995 and April 1996 Ofsted inspectors inspected 88,000 lessons in comprehensive schools under Section 9 of the Education (Schools) Act 1992. Forty-six per cent. of these had either only upper ability, middle ability or lower ability pupils and 54 per cent. were mixed ability lessons.