North East schools would rise in rankings if Government used 'fairer' system

Schools in the North East are being unfairly marked down by the Government’s official progress measure, new analysis suggests.

Dozens of secondary schools in the region would see their rating for how much progress pupils make upgraded if factors like deprivation and the ethnicity of pupils are taken into account, according to a report published today. Education leaders in the region say the new study gives a better picture of school standards in the North East.

For several years the Government’s method of evaluating secondary school performance, known as the Progress 8 measure, has failed to take into account factors including the number of children from poorer backgrounds at each school.

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Doing so, critics say, risks hiding systemic inequalities and providing potentially misleading conclusions about school performance, with regions like the North East seeing its schools unfairly marked down because the areas they serve are not taken into account.

There are calls for the new Labour government to provide that crucial context as a ‘Fairer Schools’ index is published which shows that Northern schools perform much better - and those in London worse - when pupils’ background is taken into account.

Developed by the University of Bristol and launched today by the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, the index adjusts for variables including pupil demographics, ethnicity, and deprivation.

The results show the real difference schools make rather than pretending every school has an identical intake with the same socio-economic status and background.

In the North East, whose schools serve a high proportion of disadvantaged and White British pupils, Progress 8 scores improve substantially. In London, the high average Progress 8 score more than halves.

Some 22 North East schools go from being average to above or well above average, two go from below average to above average and a further 41 schools labelled by the Department for Education under the previous Government as below or well below average move to being average.

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “The Fairer Schools Index exposes the shortcomings of Progress 8 being used to measure any schools performance on its own. By failing to account for a number of different variables related to pupils’ backgrounds, the last government labelled many schools in areas like the North East of England as under-performing while failing to account for demographic differences in helping drive higher outcomes in London schools.

“We are advocating for the adoption of a value-added measure side by side with the current, unadjusted data. This will allow us to recognise better those schools that do the most for those children from backgrounds too often let down in modern Britain.

“We must demand the best for every child. Those schools that beat the odds stacked against their pupils should be recognised as being high performing, and that will drive down the disadvantage gap over the decade to come and reduce the gaps which exist across and between parts of England today.”

Chris Zarraga, director of Schools North East, said: “In our 2024 Manifesto for North East Education, we highlighted the false negative narrative of a North-South divide in school standards, which has developed as a result measures of school performance that fail to take into account the contextual challenges schools in our region face.

“Current progress measures have unfairly penalised schools serving disadvantaged communities, and the Fairer Schools Index shows the extent to which this is the case.

“Recognising and mapping the North East scale of the contextual challenges is a matter of urgency, to ensure resources and funding reaches where need is highest and to effectively close the disadvantage gap in education.”

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.