Regional schools commissioners will ignore academy trusts’ own data on their 2020 results and “pseudo Progress 8” scores provided by third parties when making decisions this year.
RSCs oversee the academies sector, and are responsible for deciding if schools need to move between trusts. They are also involved in decisions on new free schools and academy orders for ‘inadequate’-rated LA-maintained schools.
As exam results are normally a factor in RSCs’ decisions, the Department for Education has published an updated decision-making framework following the decision to cancel exams and league tables this summer.
The guidance states that decisions “are normally informed by a range of factors, not simply a single year’s Key Stage 2 test, or GCSE/A level results”.
RSCs will continue to consider factors such as trends in educational performance data between 2017 and 2019, Ofsted reports, parental perspective, recruitment and retention of staff, schools’ improvement strategies, financial expertise within a trust and the capacity and skills of a trust’s leadership and board.
Pupil attendance will also be factored-in, but not for the spring and summer term of 2020.
However, the guidance states that RSCs will not consider factors such as a trust’s own data on their 2020 results, or “pseudo Progress 8 from third parties”.
The guidance also reiterates “that 2020 exams will not be used to judge schools in any way and we will not ask trusts to provide us with this data (or take it into account if trusts supply it)”.
RSCs will also not take into account a trust’s own internal data, “except in respect of asking strategic questions about why data are collected and what purpose they serve”.
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