When looking at the data available, the three things which jumped up and down demanding attention were our old friend ‘Similar Schools’, the almost total lack of historical data and the ‘Value Added Measures.’
Oh no, those ‘not at all similar schools’ are back…
Now, I ranted about ‘Similar Schools’ last week in the Ofsted Schools Data Dashboard. I argued that – based on the information available on the OSDD website – the similar schools measure was tosh of the highest water. As far as I can/could tell from the OSDD, Ofsted’s idea of a similar school is one in which the children who were assessed in Year 2 were assessed at similar levels. I’m still not sure about this – it may be those in year 3, or it could be all of the children in Key Stage 2 – the supporting documentation on the OSDD site is unclear. But, either way, what I have found out about the way the performance tables select ‘similar schools’ is much, much more worrying.