The new School League Tables – factors underlying recent developments

School League Tables have long provided one means of evaluating how well schools perform. 2016 saw the first application of an entirely new framework – this session explores the new methodologies (using the National Pupil Database (‘NPD’))[1] to provide evidence about how well each state-funded school has performed in relationship to that of all the 3000+ national schools. This has particular relevance to government’s recent proposal to open new Grammar schools in order (in its own words) ‘to offer bright but disadvantaged pupils access to high quality education’.

Although schools are the focus of the League Tables, the analyses underlying them are based entirely on pupils’ performances. The results of the 2016 Year 11 examinations will use the NPD to indicate the underlying principles and detail of these analyses (some of which are based on original work carried out in York) for providing a national comparative framework for every school. The session will include a new visualisation of the place of Grammar schools within the national context as well as a summary of the performance of local state-funded Secondary schools in York, East & North Ridings.