Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Fairer Schools Index developed at the University of Bristol, and its suggestion that the Progress 8 measure understates school achievements in deprived parts of England.

The Progress 8 accountability measure is designed to take pupils’ prior attainment into account and shows the progress made by pupils in a school compared to progress made by pupils nationally with similar starting points.

The department publishes breakdowns of Progress 8 for different pupil groups, such as disadvantaged pupils, to show the progress made by disadvantaged pupils at school level. It also shows the proportion of pupils in a school eligible for free school meals in the last six years, compared to the national average. This enables parents, and those working with schools, to view a school’s results alongside information about its cohort. The government will continue to keep this under review.