Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 28
28
Rejected
Department set long-term attainment ambitions but lacks interim progress milestones.
Recommendation
In the March 2022 Schools White Paper, the Department set ambitions that, by 2030, 90% of primary school children would achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas would have increased by a third. The ambitions for secondary schools were for the national GCSE average grade in both English language and maths to increase from 4.5 in 2019 to 5.0 by 2030.55 The Department has not set milestones between now and 2030 to show progress towards these ambitions.56 We asked the Department how, without milestones, it was going to track progress. The Department agreed that the long- term ambition in the Schools White Paper invited a recognition of the importance of setting progress measures. It had not done that in the White Paper, but expected to be able to make public its plans for primary school pupils in the next couple of months.57
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation to set explicit milestones for its 2030 ambitions, arguing that existing national attainment data, KPIs, and forthcoming statistics already provide sufficient measures of progress.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. The department already publishes national attainment data, for phonics, key stage 1, key stage 2, key stage 4 and key stage 5, which indicate trends in attainment and pupil progress. The department also publishes data on key performance indicators and critical programmes, including through its annual reports and accounts. Collectively, these provide measures of progress for improving the school system. The Schools White Paper Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child (published March 2022) set out the department’s ambitions for schools in England and approach to raising attainment for all pupils, including through ensuring a supply of high-quality teachers, improving standards in classrooms through effective, evidence-based programmes and providing children and young people with the additional support they may need, such as tutoring through the National Tutoring Programme. The department has increased the core schools’ budget by an additional £2 billion in 2023-24 and 2024-25, and continues to build a stronger school system, delivering the recommendations of the Academies regulatory and commissioning review (published March 2023) and taking forward the Special educational needs and disability (SEND) and alternative provision improvement plan (published March 2023). Statistics on attainment in KS1, KS2 and phonics at regional and local authority level and broken down by pupil and school characteristics will be published in Autumn 2023. This will provide the department with the latest picture of progress towards the 2030 ambitions on attainment. Detailed 2023 attainment data across key stage 2 and key stage 4 will not be available prior to the 2023 summer parliamentary recess. Key stage 2 national statistics were released on 11 July 2023. This shows that overall, more pupils met the expected standard in this year’s mathematics and writing assessments than last year, and although reading has declined from last year it remains consistent with results in 2019 prior to the pandemic. The department continues to use evidence and wider insights to review progress towards our 2030 ambitions, across different cohorts and phases, to determine how best to support all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged.