Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason her Department has included Russell Group progression as a measure in school performance data and whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of this inclusion on (a) schools and (b) non-Russell Group universities.

The percentage of students progressing to Russell Group universities metric provides useful information to parents and students about which schools and colleges support their students to go on to study at this group of research intensive institutions. This is a supplementary measure to the department’s main headline and top-level additional destination measures. Russell Group is a term which is widely understood. Most Russell Group universities are in the top third higher education institutions.

The department keeps all measures under regular review.