A new research paper from the Education Policy Institute (EPI)
calls for multi-academy trusts and other school groups to be
judged on a wider range of measures relating to pupil inclusion
to allow for more informative comparisons.
School groups – such as academy trusts, federations, dioceses and
local authorities – are a central fixture of England’s school
system today. Previous research has measured the effectiveness of
these groups, but this has mainly focused on pupil progress and
attainment.
The EPI paper, which is sponsored by the National Education Union
(NEU), argues that solely focusing on these measures has serious
limitations and can lead to exclusionary practices, such as not
admitting vulnerable children, excluding them or “off-rolling”
them before they sit their GCSEs.
As part of a wider project which aims to highlight effective
school groups, the research paper proposes that school groups
should be judged on positive examples of pupil inclusion,
alongside progress and attainment.
The inclusion measures proposed – based on school choice,
attendance and exclusions and pupil achievement – would serve as
a means for school groups to benchmark their progress against
others and identify improvements.
EPI is seeking feedback on the proposed measures of pupil
inclusion in its paper and is encouraging organisations to engage
in a new consultation, which is open until 14th March 2022. This
will then feed into a final report published in Summer 2022.
Commenting on the new research, Bobbie Mills, author and
a Senior Researcher at EPI, said:
“The expansion of multi-academy trusts (MATs) appears to be back
on the government's agenda and we urgently need a better
understanding of which MATs and other school groups are
delivering good results for young people.
"There are serious limitations to measuring the effectiveness of
these groups solely on pupil progress and attainment. An
effective school group must meet the needs of all pupils in the
communities it serves, which is why our paper proposes a new
measurement of school effectiveness that also
considers pupil inclusion."
Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary, National
Education Union, said:
“It’s time to think differently about which metrics are used to
evaluate schools and to develop their capacity for self-
evaluation. We know how essential collaboration between schools
is to success for greater numbers of students across the system.
We think this project can explore interesting questions about
what gets measured and why and the consequences of these policy
choices, especially for some groups of young people.
"The differential impact of disruption to learning from Covid for
different groups of learners poses an enormously complicated
question about what response is needed in 2022 and 2023.
Inclusion and wellbeing should be a central goal of education so
we need to develop better ways to make that a reality for
students and their communities."
