17th March 2017 1:00
By Blue Tutors
Amanda Spielman called the practice in schools of entering students for easier qualifications to ensure a higher mark "nothing short of a scandal" in her first address as the new head of Ofstead, the schools regulatory agency. Schools were warned earlier in the year about entering pupils for non-academic qualifications in order to boost their performance statistics, even when it is not in the best interest of the student. This can mean anything from subject choice to exam board or even discouraging students from taking qualifications altogether.
This forms part of the widespread investigation to be carried out into the breadth of education offered by schools in an attempt to combat the response to league tables. Recent pressures on schools to perform well in school league tables based on academic performance of their students have led to many reducing the range of subject being taught, narrowing the national curriculum. Beyond this, several schools have been found to squeeze out students who could adversely affect their average rating. Some exam boards and subjects are not included in the league table ranking data and schools have been found to encourage less able students to take these in order to exclude them from the school’s ranking data.
Examinations and league tables are put in place to ensure that schools maintain the quality of education students receive, making it all the more distressing when assessments are used against the interests of the students. This is the reason why some independent schools have decided to opt out of providing students with the option of the exams used in league tables, deliberately appearing at the bottom in the knowledge that it is a meaningless as a measure of their teaching. Many feel that the league table assessment criteria should be reevaluated in order to reflect a school’s ability to deliver the best outcome for its students, but no one appears to know of a practical way to measure and implement this ideal system.