Stories + Views: Facts & Figures

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Henry Stewart: Has Secrecy Returned to Academy Finances?

Cameron promised that academy finances would be freely available to parents. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) demanded data showing academy level expenditure. But go to the DfE Performance Tables and you will find full financial information for maintained schools and nothing comparable for academies. This is a step backward from last year, when the Department for Education published a spread-sheet of ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Neil Moffatt: "This is as appalling as it is, sadly, unsurprising. The DfE appear to treat any demands placed upon them with atrocious disdain. They act in the petulant, arrogant manner of the bully. They adore private ownership of schools, now in ......"

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Henry Stewart: Did Mossbourne get more funding?

Some years ago I visited Mossbourne, to learn from their remarkable success. Impressed by the huge range of extra after-school provision, I asked Michael Wilshaw how they could afford it. I remember his words well: "Because we get more funding than your school does. You should become an academy." When asked the same question on the BBC Today programme last ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Janet Downs: "Guest - no-one is disputing the fact that Bradford's education system ten years ago had been criticised by Ofsted. Serco's tenure in Bradford did not produce the hoped-for results. "Dispatches" inverviewed people who were dissatisfied with what was ......"

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Henry Stewart: Why 3 Levels of Progress is a Very Silly Measure

Increasingly schools are being encouraged, by the Department for Education and by Ofsted, to focus on achieving three levels of progress for every student. (Three levels represents going from Level 3 at age 11 to a D at GCSE, level 4 to a C and level 5 to an A.) The flaw in this approach became clear this week when ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Rebecca Hanson: "I'm delighted to be able to withdraw my comment. The anomalies I was concerned about are most likely facet of the transition between SATS and GCSE results (with SATS results being broken down into sub-levels and GCSE results not ......"

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Henry Stewart: The data on level 5 conversion to GCSE grades

Ofsted told us today that schools are underperforming if students who arrive with Level 5 in Maths and English do not go on to achieve grade A or A* at GCSE. While it is clearly good to have high aspirations for our students, it is not clear why a level 5 at Key Stage 2 should be seen as equivalent ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Janet Downs: "The same applies to Level 4 Sats. The DfE says that expected progress will have been made if pupils who left primary school with Level 4 should get at least a C grade. But Level 4 is a ......"

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Henry Stewart: Selection Results in Lower Grades

Ofsted have today produced a report claiming that, for those children leaving primary school with a level 5 in English and Maths, less achieved A/A* in those subjects than in selective schools. However this is not a fair comparison. They overlook that few grammar schools admit every student in their locality who gains level 5+. Most select a higher achieving minority from ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Tom Vance: "'there is no significant difference between the academic performance of students at Cambridge from different school/college backgrounds. This confirms the findings of the HEFCE (2003) study, which found that, at the highest levels of ability (i.e. among those students achieving ......"

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Henry Stewart: The Academies Illusion: What the data reveals

It has become the conventional wisdom, in politics and the press, that academies are an unqualified success and the only route to transform an underperforming school. Analysis of the data does not back up this view. After a reminder of the relative increases in GCSE results in 2012, I look at how different schools use equivalents and likelihood of taking ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Ed Banks: "In a spirit of helpfulness: http://www.education.gov.uk/popularquestions..."

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Henry Stewart: Spending on Schools Works

Today Reform published a report claiming that school spending could be cut by 18% without any effect on standards. A detailed look at their analysis will take some time but their conclusion runs counter to the experience of London schools. The two boroughs with the highest spend-per-pupil in the country were two years ago revealed to be Hackney and Tower Hamlets. ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Janet Downs: "Back to Bradford: there were concerns about Serco’s management of Education Bradford as early as 2003. Exam results had risen at a faster rate than elsewhere but this was from a lower base. There were complaints about lack ......"

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Henry Stewart: The Remarkable Research of Janet Downs

The FOI debate between Janet Downs and the Department for Education, over Michael Gove's mis-use of surveys to claim modern teenagers were ignorant, hit the headlines today. So far it has been covered in the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Huffington Post. Regular readers of Local Schools Network will know Janet's work well. She is renowned for digging out obscure facts ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Peter Prince: "It might aid the readership here if genuine FAQs were separated out from what appears to be a series of highly selective P.R. rebuttal briefing guides on various Education orientated reports. For example, the answer to the FAQ ‘What problems do ......"

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Janet Downs: DfE digs up more “survey’s” – but do they support Gove’s statement that teenagers have “disturbing historical ignorance”?

Today’s young people are uninformed about history – that’s what Education Secretary, Michael Gove, says. In a Mail article, he cited “survey after survey” which displayed “disturbing historical ignorance” among teenagers. But the Department of Education (DfE) could only find one survey when asked*. That survey, by TV Gold, turned out to be targeting all ages not just teenagers. And ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by When A Government Minister’s Data Laundry is Hung Out to Dry… | School of Data - Evidence is Power: "[...] well targeted Freedom of Information request to the UK Department for Education and its consequent report hit the news here recently. It turns out that a claim by Minister for Education, Michael Gove, that [...]..."

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Henry Stewart: Academies: Where Did The £1 Billion Go?

When the National Audit Office revealed the £1 billion overspend on academies, many assumed this was caused by the incentives paid to individual schools to convert.  At the Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge noted (p28) that 78% of schools that converted did so because of the extra money available and quoted Christopher Cook's analysis in the Financial Times, which found ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Tubby Isaacs: "Not convinced by all of that. Not least because the DfE didn't say it, but muttered something about underspends elsewhere. Which LEA schools have no insurance? Isn't it compulsory? And even if there really are these unfunded liabilities, that's not how ......"

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