Check the data for your childs school - find the hidden truth

[riddlesgalore]

You might like to ask questions based on DFE performance data:
www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/

Particularly the average point scores percentage of GCSE only entries against all (including equivalents).

Also Ofsted's Data Dashboard:

dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/

You may find it interesting to compare schools against the bench marks you think important. Also remember to check the courses entered at GCSE and A Level to ascertain if the academy/school is guilty of any league table manipulation at the expense of attaining pupils full potential.

I think you will find it very interesting.

Thanks warwick1 . I'm really out of here now.

BBB- The FAQs say "The figures in the School data dashboard are drawn from RAISEonline and Department for Education (DfE) performance tables." This information is already centrally collected and collated.

Thanks, riddlesgalore. I've not seen the information put like that before. It's quite addictive...I've been typing in loads of schools!

It was quite eye-opening for me. DS has just got into a school with fantastic academic results, but looking at the quintiles it appears that their intake is mainly high attainers and they compare poorly compared to similar schools! This is the best school in the borough!

The information has made me realise that once DS gets into the school I will need to make sure that they don't allow him to coast as he is bright and will get good results anyway.

PS, I don't undersand why you got such snotty replies at the beginning....some people really think they know it all and need to get over themselves!

The 'average grade per GCSE' is quite illuminating too. A school can score spectacularly on the 5 GCSEs including maths and English score, but when you look at the average grade per GCSE it's not what you expect.

As you say, riddlesgalore, league table manipulation at the expense of students attaining their full potential. Wow.

For those members who are still interested in understanding educational data and how the DFE and Ofsted analyse the data, the following link may be useful:

www.raiseonline.org/documentlibrary/ViewDocumentLibrary.aspx

To those members who appear to wish to keep data away from discerning parents and other interested parties, as illustrated by some of the comments posted previously, and for whatever motive, please avert eyes.

Thank you Riddlesgalore.

Having checked the raiseonline site to learn something about the progress measures used including Best 8 and Value added I then compared my DS's school with others both in the area and similar. It has proved to be very enlightening. Given that the value added national average for all maintained schools is 1000 my DS's school, despite their boasts, have failed to either add value or even maintain value, for either their mid or higher attaining students over several years. Also when comparing average point scores they obtained a C- average grade for all qualifications including equivalents but only an average of D for GCSE qualifications. Maybe that answers the question of why they were so keen to push students towards equivalents in science rather than GCSE's even though other local sixth form centres refused to accept students with those equivalent qualifications for their science GCE A Level courses. The academy maintained that they were of equal value but obviously for the league tables they represented better value but for students they represented less value. Presumably the same thing can happen at A Level.

"Learning resources (not ICT equipment)" is the bit i'm interested in.

my favourite school is spending £180 per pupil on it, which is 5%

other schools are spending less than 3% on it (some of which have higher incomes).

and they try to tell me that they can't afford books?