Rebecca Allen (IOE) and Simon Burgess (CMPO)

Tomorrow the new school league tables are published, with the usual blitz of interest in the rise and fall of individual schools. The arguments for and against the publication of these tables are now so familiar as to excite little interest.

But this year there is a significant change in the content of the tables.  For the first time, GCSE results for each school will be reported for groups of pupils within the school, groups defined by their Keystage 2 (KS2) scores. Specifically, for each school the tables will report the percentage of pupils attaining at least 5 A* – C grades (including English and maths) separately for low-attaining pupils, high attaining pupils and a middle group.  This change has potentially far-reaching implications, which we describe below.

This is a change for the better, one that we have proposed and supported