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Schools

Answer

The department is committed to making it easier to locate, analyse and interpret education data. We have made a number of specific commitments to make education data more transparent and to ensure that schools, parents and other members of the public have the information they need to inform their decisions in respect of education. This year's school performance tables include information on school workforce, school finance, Ofsted reports and absence. They also give access to the underlying data on which the tables are based. The enhanced performance tables website enables users to look at attainment and progress in greater detail eg the comparative progress made by pupils with differing levels of prior attainment (low, middle, high ability bands); or to compare the attainment and progress of disadvantaged pupils (ie those on free school meals and children looked after children) with that of other pupils. In addition to basic information on the number and percentage of pupils in a cohort achieving the English Baccalaureate, the tables also give this information for each prior attainment group and disadvantaged pupils and will also give a breakdown of entries and achievements in each subject area. Parents and others using the tables website can search for schools, select the performance indicators they are interested in, and compare schools against each other and against national averages. We are also working to provide improved access to even more education data, including anonymised data from the department's National Pupil Database (NPD) so it can be used to support a wide range of purposes from June 2012. Officials are working with relevant experts to assess and develop a methodology to anonymise the data held in the NPD. The release of data from the NPD will be consistent with our existing policy of releasing data in accessible formats that will allow a wide range of third parties to reuse the data.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

14770; 734 c249WA

Session

2010-12

Related items

Schools: Music
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Written questions
House of Lords

Subjects

Disclosure of information Standards Schools

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk