The 2010 Department for Education performance tables’ website describes contextual value added (CVA) as “a measure that results from, as far as possible, adjusting for and therefore eliminating the impact of external factors, such as pupil mobility, ethnic background or deprivation, so that it gets as near as possible to reflecting the ‘school effect’ ” and states that it “gives a much fairer measure of the effectiveness of a school”.
But context became a dirty word.
It seems we have bought the line that contextual analysis excused poor performance, that it justified low expectations for disadvantaged pupils. CVA and “closing the gap” were mutually exclusive.
But this isn’t about target setting; it’s about performance measures that do not disadvantage schools with particular intakes.
A blog post written by Education DataLab’s Dave Thomson in April 2015 looked at the issue of supposed underperformance at key stage 4 of pupil premium students in coastal schools. Initially, it appears there is a big disparity between this group’s Progress 8 scores in coastal schools and those in other areas.
However, when ethnicity is introduced (the vast majority of pupil premium pupils in coastal areas are white British), the Progress 8 scores are nearly identical.
Schools need to be ready
The data still reveals an issue, but it is not one that is specific to coastal schools; it is an issue relating to white British pupil premium children that is easily masked in urban areas.
Thankfully, the C-word appears to be on the cusp of making a comeback. The Standards and Testing Agency’s clarification on teacher assessment states that Ofsted will “take into account national performance and contextual factors when considering a school’s performance in writing at key stage 2” while the Schools Causing Concern guidance notes that Regional Schools’ Commissioners will consider the “performance of the school in relation to schools in similar contexts”.
Schools, therefore, need to be ready to compare their performance against that of similar schools. School data organisation FFT (fft.org.uk) includes a range of CVA measures in its dashboards, which take account of 13 influencing factors. The inclusion of length of time in school, mobility and SEND will certainly be of interest to heads keen to make benchmarked, like-for-like comparisons.
Yes, contextualised target setting can result in lower expectations for those pupil groups that commonly underperform, which is one of the reasons why FFT has done away with socio-economic estimates for KS2 and KS4. But CVA should remain because it is clearly the best way of demonstrating the school’s impact on pupil achievement.
That’s not making excuses; that’s just fair.
James Pembroke founded Sig+, an independent school data consultancy, after 10 years working with the Learning and Skills Council and local authorities www.sigplus.co.uk
