Key Stage 4 Performance Tables

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

Professor Alison Wolfs’ wide-ranging review was published on 3 March 2011. She found that too many young people are studying courses that offer no basis for progression to further study or to meaningful employment. Some of these courses “counted” in Performance Tables as being equivalent to a number of GCSEs and were being taken at the expense of core subjects, valued most by employers, colleges and universities.

Professor Wolf concluded that incentives provided through the school performance tables were, at least in part, responsible for this situation and recommended that the tables be reformed. The Government accepted these recommendations. In future, school performance tables will:

include only those qualifications that are of a high quality, are rigorous and enable progression to a range of study and employment opportunities; and

count each of those qualifications as equivalent to one GCSE only and exclude qualifications that are smaller than GCSEs.

The Department for Education consulted extensively on the characteristics and process to be used to identify qualifications for inclusion in school performance tables. The Department’s response to this consultation, setting out Technical Guidance for awarding organisations, was published on 27 October 2011. Today the Department will announce which of the qualifications awarding organisations submitted for review meet the new standards. These are listed below.

In addition to GCSEs, established iGCSEs, and AS level qualifications and their equivalents, which will continue to be included in Performance Tables, a further 125 qualifications have also been approved as meeting the required standards. Of these, 70 are at level 2 and are included in the 5+A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent) including English and Maths measure of performance. The remaining 55 are at level 1. The latter will not be included within this measure, but do count towards a number of other indicators.

These changes will apply to courses taught from September 2012 and first reported in school Performance Tables in 2014.

The reforms represent a significant change to the measurement of school performance. The number of non-GCSE/iGCSE qualifications that will count in the 2014 Performance Tables will fall by 96%.

Focusing on a core of high quality and rigorous qualifications will also free up curriculum time. Teachers will have more freedom to exercise professional judgment in developing a broad and balanced curriculum and ensuring that this reflects the particular needs and abilities of their pupils. A wide range of other qualifications have been accredited by Ofqual for teaching to 14 to 16 year olds and approved for use in schools.

In March 2012, the Department will publish an updated version of this list. This is likely to include a small number of additional qualifications accredited by Ofqual by the beginning of March. An equalities impact assessment will be published alongside this. Both will be subject to annual review and the list of qualifications that will be included in the 2015 Performance Tables will be published in November 2012.