Commenting as the government today announce what
school performance data they will use for accountability this
year, after a disrupted year due to Covid, Paul Whiteman, general
secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said:
"The decision to publish the normal sets of performance measures
at secondary and post 16 is deeply concerning. The extent of
disruption to children and young people’s education has varied
considerably during the pandemic, which will make comparison of
performance data between schools meaningless. Given widespread
acknowledgement of this issue, it is of considerable concern that
government should be striving to reintroduce performance tables
quite so quickly.
"Published data in 2022 could be unreliable for a number of
reasons, but most importantly it will reflect the very different
experiences pupils have had and the face to face teaching time
they have missed as a result of the pandemic. The data may tell
you more about the impact of the pandemic on the school than the
achievement and progress which has been made by its pupils, in
the challenging circumstances they may have faced.
"While we have known for some time that the government has been
intent on pressing ahead with a full suite of statutory
assessments, the decision not to publish performance data for
primary schools is the right thing to do. However, the data will
be calculated and shared with Ofsted. The fact that the data is
likely to be highly unreliable means that it should not be used
to hold schools to account."
