Communication

Letter to schools

 

Dear Headteacher,

www.schoolperformancetables.com and the National Single Indicator

I thought you would be interested to hear about the launch of our National Single Indicator of school performance, available at our new www.schoolperformancetables.com website. The indicator is based on publicly available data and measures derived from the Department of Education’s own league tables. We have slimmed down the data and combined what we think are the most important measures into a single, straightforward indicator which parents can use to consider the schools they are interested in.

The indicator is formed from an amalgam of the expected progress measures; the main threshold level; pupils’ average point score; and the value added measure. An outline of how this has been calculated is available in our detailed documentation.

By changing the weight attributed to each of these measures, the website allows parents – or other interested parties – to modify the measures’ relative value according to the importance that users place on them. This dynamically alters the overall result to give users their own “personal indicator” which means they can compare schools in a list tailored to their own specification. Another innovation provides a search of all secondary schools by the subjects they offer, outside the core curriculum, allowing parents to further refine their requirements and preferences.

Finally, for now, www.schoolperformancetables.com will soon give all schools a low-cost opportunity to contextualise this information by providing their own commentary on their performance and the factors contributing to it. There will also be space to upload your logo alongside more general details about your school. We will shortly send you login information and further details about how you can access this facility.

Best wishes,

 

Robert Baldy
CEO

Software for Data Analysis