Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of attainment in each region of the UK.

The Department for Education produces statistics for England only.

The Department publishes pupil attainment in a number of headline measures for each region of England; these figures can be compared to the national average for all pupils.

Headline measures for Key Stage 2 for each region in England are published at the following link for the academic years 2009/10 – 2016/17: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-key-stage-2[1].

Due to change in methodology and headline measures, figures are only comparable between 2009/10 – 2014/15 and 2015/16 – 2016/17.

Headline measures for Key Stage 4 for each region in England are published at the following link for the academic years 2009/10 – 2016/17: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-gcses-key-stage-4[2]. Due to changes in methodology and headline measures, these figures are not comparable year on year after 2013/14. Changes include the introduction of Wolf reform and early entry policy in 2013/14 and 2014/15 respectively and the implementation of a new accountability system in 2016 to include Attainment 8 and Progress 8 as headline measures, replacing the 5 A*-C including English and mathematics measure[3].

Headline measures for 16-18 study for each region in England are published for the academic years 2009/10 – 2016/17 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-attainment-at-19-years[4]. Due to changes in methodology and headline measures, figures are only comparable between 2009/10 – 2014/15 and 2015/16 – 2016/17.

[1] For each year, select the ‘revised’ publication and then open the ‘Local authority and regional tables’. For 2015/16 – 2016/17 the headline measures are the percentage of pupils reaching the expected standard and can be found in tables L1, L2 and L3. For 2009/10 – 2014/15 the headline measures are the percentage achieving level 4 or above and can be found in tables 12-16 (2013/14 – 2014/15); tables 12-15 (2012/13); tables 13-15 (2011/12); table 11 (2010/11); table 18 (2009/10 – in the ‘national and local authority tables’).

[2] For 2009/10 – 2014/15 select the ‘revised’ publication for 2014/15 and open the ‘main local authority tables’ and then table LA2 which presents a time series of the headline measure. For 2015/16 - 2016/17 the headline measure was changed to Progress 8 and achievement of the English Baccalaureate which can be found in revised publication for each year, in the LA tables, in table LA1.

[3]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493295/SFR01_2016_QualityandMethodology.pdf. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/584167/SFR03_2017_QualityandMethodology.pdf.

[4] For each year, select the ‘revised’ publication and then open the ‘Local authority tables’. For 2015/16 - 2016/17 the headline attainment measures are the average point score (APS) per entry and APS per entry expressed as a grade for each qualification type. These can be found in table ‘9a all’ (2016/17); table 9a (2015/16); table 12c (2014/15); table 12a (2012/13 - 2013/14); table 9a (2011/12); table 10 (2010/11); table 9 (2009/10).