DfE Performance Tables - why have they hidden all the data ?

[TaIkinPeace]

The lovely old site is gone .... the one that allowed you to put schools into context.
In its place we have this abomination
www.gov.uk/school-performance-tables
What are they trying to hide?

[redskytonight]

The tables looks the same to me apart from changes in styling ... what in particular are you missing??

[TaIkinPeace]

All of the cohort information
the Value added
the FSM percentages
the SEN percentages
the intake / selection / gender information
the ability to look at a region rather than just a single LEA

just EVERYTHING except the first few columns has gone
and WHY would we want to search by Academy Sponsor ?

[OddBoots]

I can't see value added only percentages making expected progress but the other stuff is there if you select the actual school you want to see and use the tabs further down the page.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/100642

[Clavinova]

I noticed this a few weeks ago and agree with TalkinPeace - it all looks like gobbledygook now.

[BerriesandLeaves]

If you click on absence and pupil population in Oddboots link you can see SEN and free school meals

[TaIkinPeace]

oddboots / berries
but you cannot get it for all the schools in an area or of a type so that you can COMPARE them

the whole point of a table is to be able to look at the data set, not to click on a single school without seeing it in the bigger picture.

You use to be able to pick an LEA, say Bournemouth, and look at the cohort information for all of the schools at once and thus make sense of the one you were interested in.

[BerriesandLeaves]

I can see value added by selecting schools to compare and then selecting Best 8 value added.

[BerriesandLeaves]

And i can select all the schools in an area

[BerriesandLeaves]

Select start now and then location and then select the schools you want to compare

[BerriesandLeaves]

Also you can select the type of pupils you want to compare performance of eg. Disadvantaged pupils/girls/

[Clavinova]

Here's the 2014 table for Bournemouth for example:
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/2014/group.pl?qtype=GR&f=O0RbBcYX0M&superview=sec&view=aat&set=2&tab=150&no=998&sort=ks4_14.ptac5em&ord=desc
Previously you could rank all the schools in any one area in an instant under all manner of criteria. Value added is not necessarily the most important criteria for many parents when selecting a school.

[TaIkinPeace]

Clavinova
That 2014 link does not work for 2015 .....
Berries
Some LEAs are very small, boundary flow is significant. On the old table you could select by region and by county (rather than by LEA)

I'm looking for work reasons, not as a parent.

Its a shame that they took down a brilliant site and replaced it with more of the .gov.uk site that has been such a disaster on the HMRC and others

[Clavinova]

Talkinpeace
Yes I know - I was linking to the previous, much better tables.
I've told them exactly what I think of their new tables in the user survey!

[BerriesandLeaves]

Value added is not necessarily the most important criteria for many parents when selecting a school.

I know. I was trying to help Talkin find the info she was looking for. I prefer the old tables too.

[prh47bridge]

It looks to me like a web designer's attempt to clean up the design, making it more modern looking and easier to follow. As part of this they've made it harder to get the information which, presumably, they think most parents don't want. I think it is still there in the form of Excel downloads but I haven't checked in detail - the downloaded spreadsheet is not designed for ease of use!

Personally I prefer the old tables.

[JinRamen]

I don't mind it. I thought the finance bit was interesting - the lowest spend per pupil was for schoos notoriously known as bad for Sen. The number of pupils per teacher/ta was interesting to. I hadn't seen that info in. The last tables, although it has been quite a few years since I looked. The other enlightening bit was the absence, particularly the persistent absences, which explains why our head is so hot on attendance.