§ Lorna FitzsimonsTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what work is being done on the development of school and teacher performance indicators with particular reference to issues relating to schools with a large percentage of students for whom English is an additional language. [88680]
§ Ms Estelle MorrisOur Autumn Package of performance data for schools currently benchmarks school-level achievements by reference to the proportion of pupils with free school meals (as a general indicator of disadvantage), and presents estimates of pupil progress between NC Keystages based on national samples of linked individual performance records.
The Department, in close collaboration with its education partners, is developing a national system of individualised pupil records which will give assessments of the value added by all schools and the progress made by pupils within them. This initiative will allow comparison of the progress of pupils with similar prior attainments and backgrounds, including the state of their English language development. The introduction of national assessments of school value added are planned to come on stream with the publication of KS3 to GCSE/GNVQ information in the Performance Tables in Autumn 2000.
Our proposals for a national scheme of school and teacher performance awards do not have features which are specific for schools with varying proportions of pupils with English as an Additional Language. Nevertheless, the School Performance Award Scheme proposed in the Green Paper "Teachers: Meeting the challenge of change" will reward schools whose performance is consistently of a high standard, or of a markedly improving trend, given their general level of disadvantage. The new performance management arrangements for individual teachers will be based on agreed objectives, which will take account of local circumstances.
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