§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will indicate which specialist sports colleges are accredited and the local education authorities in which they are situated. [HL3323]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland):There are 260 sports colleges in England in a total of 122 local education authorities. More sports colleges, approved following the latest round of applications, will be announced at the end of this month.
18WAA full list of approved sports colleges, showing their locations, has been placed in the Library.
§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
What percentage of pupils at specialist sports colleges and non-specialist schools obtained five or more A to C grade GCSEs in each of 2001, 2002 and 2003. [HL3324]
§ Baroness Ashton of Upholland:Pupils in sports colleges have achieved the following performance in terms of percentages of 5 + A*-C GCSEs compared to pupils in non-specialist schools:
2001 (100 schools
)2002(160 schools
)2003(228 schools
)Sports Colleges 47.3 48.7 48.7 Non-specialist Schools 47.3 48.4 49.1 The numbers of sports colleges has doubled since 2001, with 2003 seeing the largest single increase— meaning that most sports colleges are quite new to the programme. This has an impact on average attainment because the benefits of specialism increase over time—as reflected in analysis by the Youth Sport Trust which shows that sports colleges designated in 1997 have increased their average attainment in every year since then.
Furthermore, as set out in a previous answer (HL2053), sports colleges are raising attainment at a higher rate than the national average; and their average value added was higher in 2003 than in 2002 at both key stages 2–3 and 3–4 as set out in the table below:
DFES value added Key Stage 2–3
DFES value added Key Stage 3–4
year SCs–% Gap against
average
in %
points
SCs–% Gap against
average
in %
points
2002 98.3 –1.6 97.9 –0.8 2003 99.7 -0.2 98.7 –0.4