§ Baroness Sharp of Guildfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
What evidence they have to support their contention that shifting to specialist status improves pupil performance in secondary schools. [HL658]
§ Baroness Ashton of UphollandResearch carried out by the London School of Economics calculated that between 1994–98 the average annual rate increase in GCSE A*-C performance in specialist schools was half as much again as in non-specialist maintained schools. On the same measure, specialist schools continued to improve faster than the national average for all other schools between 1997 and 2000 when the percentage point improvement for pupils gaining 5+ A*-C grades at GCSE in specialist schools throughout this period was 6.1 compared with 4.1 in other maintained schools. Research carried out by Professor David Jesson of York University also shows that specialist schools are performing very well on value added scores. Comparing results of 1995 key stage 2 tests with GCSE results in 2000, comprehensive specialist schools achieved a value added of + 5.4 percentage points compared to -1.1 for all other comprehensive schools. Last year the percentage of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSEs at A*-C grades was 54 per cent in specialist schools compared with 45 per cent in other maintained schools.