Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of mandating the sharing of students' data between Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5.

All schools maintained by a local authority in England are required to send a Common Transfer File (CTF) to the new school when a pupil ceases to be registered at their school and becomes a registered pupil at another school. Academies, including free schools, are also strongly encouraged to send CTFs when a pupil leaves to attend another school.

Information specified by the department for inclusion in a CTF includes a record of the pupil’s attainment and achievements, which would include details of key stage 4 results where available. Details of a pupil’s prior attainment is included in the CTF to ensure schools are able to meet the individual needs of each pupil with greater accuracy and maintain the momentum of their learning.

Although there is no legal requirement for a school to transfer information to a further education (FE) college, schools are encouraged to do so on request from the FE college, where a secure method of transfer is available.

In addition, the department runs the Learning Records Service (LRS). The LRS allows providers to collect and manage unique learner numbers on behalf of learners aged 14 and above. This provides a consistent identifier for young people to learning providers including schools, academies, FE providers, higher education providers and offender learning providers (prisons), which allows those providers to access a learner’s personal learning record to support education and career information, advice and guidance.