Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what benchmarks are used to compare attainment in UK schools and the schools of comparable countries.

England participates in three research studies that enable international benchmarking of the performance of our pupils against the performance of their peers in other countries:

• The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which compares the mathematics, science and reading competence of 15-year-olds across participating countries. Further information can be found online at: www.oecd.org/pisa/

• The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which compares the mathematics and science abilities of pupils in year 5 and year 9 in England with their peers in comparable grades in participating countries. More information can be found online at: www.iea.nl/timss_2015.html

• The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which compares the reading ability of pupils in year 5 in England with their peers in comparable grades in participating countries. This is available online at: www.iea.nl/pirls_2016.html

Northern Ireland also participates in each of these three studies, and all four UK countries participate in the OECD’s PISA study.

In England and Wales, schools can also access the OECD’s PISA-based test for schools, which provides schools with a tool to benchmark the performance of their 15-year-old pupils within and beyond local and national borders, and is available online at: www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/pisa-based-test-for-schools.htm