Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of introducing data on post-school destinations in addition to academic achievements as an indicator of school performance.

The Department for Education intends to publish destination measures data for both key stage 4 (KS4) and key stage 5 (KS5) in performance tables once we are satisfied that the data are robust enough. KS4 education destinations are already included in performance tables, and have been since 2013, but before we publish full destinations data we have to test and evaluate it fully to ensure its reliability.

We published the KS5 destination measure for the first time as experimental statistics in the 2014 destinations statistical first release[1] because of the inclusion of new institutions, such as independent schools and special schools. The employment, training and characteristics data need to be fully tested and evaluated before they can be published on the performance tables website. Tables, including employment data and breakdowns of the data based on student characteristics for former KS4 students, have also been published in the destination measures statistical first release (experimental statistics) alongside the KS5 data.

[1] www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-destinations