The government is exploring options to track pupil progress over the next academic year in response to the Covid-19 crisis, Tes can reveal.
Asked if it will be publishing its own assessment of the impact of the lockdown on the attainment gap, the Department for Education told that Tes it is currently looking at ways to keep tabs on pupils progress from September 2020.
The DfE was responding to comments made by schools minister Nick Gibb, who said on Sunday that “a whole raft of assessments” will be done to see how the attainment gap has been affected by the school shutdown.
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Appearing on Times Radio, Mr Gibb was asked: “Has the government done, or does it plan to do, an assessment of what has happened to that gap since schools have been closed, so we can formulate policy prescriptions as a result of that?”
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He replied: “Yes, of course, there will be a whole raft of assessments done. Narrowing that attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and other children has been a priority for this government, really since 2010, so a priority for me.”
Asked if there will be a “published assessment” on the impact on the “educational attainment gap between rich and poor”, Mr Gibb said: “Yes, you’ll see that coming through the results.
“For example, the provisional data for the Ofqual assessment of the calculated grades. I know that’s not necessarily an assessment of actual attainment, it’s based on these calculated grades. That shows that there has been a widening of the gap.
“But there will be a raft of studies conducted...once we start to have proper test data next summer.”
The DfE said more information on its plans would be released in due course.