§ Lord Lucasasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they approve of the practice of allowing children who are falling behind at school, or who have come to England from abroad and need time to catch up, to drop back a year; and, if so, whether they will amend the format of schools performance tables so that year group performance is measured rather than age group performance. [HL4401]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)We recognise that some pupils are working behind their normal year group for sound educational or other reasons. Decisions on such matters are for individual schools in consultation with parents.
We announced in July that pupils who have recently arrived from overseas with English language difficulties may, on the request of a school, be excluded from the information published in the annual school performance tables. We accept that such pupils will not do their best in National Curriculum tests or public examinations until they have had a chance to improve their language skills and to become more familiar with the school curriculum. We have no plans, however, to make further changes in the way we report on achievements in the school performance tables.
The primary school tables report on the achievements of all pupils eligible for assessment at the end of National Curriculum Key Stage 2, before they proceed to secondary education. New Progress Tests in English and mathematics are being introduced in May 2001. These tests, taken at the end of Year 7, are 159WA for pupils who do not achieve the expected level at the end of Key Stage 2 and will help to ensure that these pupils catch up with their peers as soon as possible. The secondary school tables report on the GCSE and GNVQ achievements of all pupils who by age are in their final year of compulsory schooling. This both ensures that a consistent approach to the calculations is taken for all schools in the country and provides parents and others in local communities with valuable information on the achievements of children as they reach these crucial stages in their education.
Basing the GCSE/GNVQ information on the achievements of all pupils in Year 11, regardless of their age, could introduce inconsistencies into the data, since decisions on such matters as the year group in which individual pupils are educated are entirely for local determination and policies vary from one school to another. Doing so could also encourage an increase in the number of pupils completing their compulsory schooling with no GCSE or GNVQ passes if as a consequence more pupils are held back. This year 32,000 pupils in England reached school leaving age with no GCSEs or GNVQs. Although that figure has fallen over recent years as a consequence of our policies to improve standards in schools, we want to do all we can to reduce it still further. We hope that the big expansion of nursery education and the emphasis on catch up provision for those behind their peers will help to ameliorate the problem.