Assessing the Variance in Pupil Attainment: How Important is the School Attended?

Abstract

We explore the variation in pupil attainment at the end of secondary schooling in England. The paper links data on all schools and all pupils within these schools to analyse the role of the school in accounting for this variation. We analyse a number of different indicators of pupil attainment including value added between the end of primary and secondary schooling and attainment levels at the end of secondary schooling. We examine indicators that were the focus of the school accounting framework as well as other indicators that were not directly part of how schools were assessed. We show that schools account for a minority of the variance in pupil attainment, and the extent of the variation accounted for by the school is sensitive to the measure of pupil attainment used. In addition, we find that the majority of the explained school-level variance in attainment is related to school composition. However, most of the variance in attainment remains unexplained, raising questions about what other factors contribute to the variation in school performance.

Keywords

schools school performance pupil attainment

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Andrews

and Perera

, with Eyles

, Sahlgren

G.H.

, Machin

, Sandi

and Silva

(2017), ‘The impact of academies on educational outcomes’, Education Policy Institute, July.

Barth

, Bryson

, David

and Freeman

(2016), ‘It's where you work: increases in the dispersion of earnings across establishments and individuals in the United States’, Journal of Labor Economics, 34, 2, pt. 2.

Brookover

, Beady

, Flood

, Schweitzer

and Wisenbaker

(1979), School Social Systems and Student Achievement: Schools can make a difference, New York: Praeger.

Bryson

, Stokes

and Wilkinson

(forthcoming), ‘Can HRM improve schools’ performance?', mimeo.

Coleman

J.S.

, Campbell

, Hobson

, McPartland

, Mood

, Weinfeld

and York

(1966), Equality of Educational Opportunity, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office.

Dearden

, Ferri

and Meghir

(2002), ‘The effect of school quality on educational attainment and wages’, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, 1, pp. 1–20, The MIT Press.

Department for Education (2010), ‘A technical guide to contextualised value added (including English and maths) Key stage 2 to 4 2010 Model, available at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150814121645/ http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/archive/schools_10/cvacalc.pdf.

Department for Education (2011), ‘A guide to value added Key stage 2 to 4 in 2011 School and College Performance tables and raise online’, available at http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20151008063953/ http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance/2011/secondary_11/KS2-4_General_VA_Guide_2011_FINAL_AMENDED.pdf.

Department for Education (2013), ‘2012 OECD PISA results’, Oral statement to Parliament, Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, 3 December.

10.

Department for Education (2014), ‘What impact does school spending have on pupil attainment? A review of the recent literature’, Department for Education, June, available at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Education/Impact-of-school-spending-on-pupil-attainment.pdf.

11.

Department for Education (2017), ‘Progress 8 and Attainment 8: Guide for maintained secondary schools, academies and free schools’, January, http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/659860/Secondary_accountability_measures_guide.pdf.

12.

Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2004), ‘Statistics in education: variation in pupil progress 2003’, Department for Education and Skills National Statistics Bulletin, Issue No 02/04, July.

13.

Eyles

and Machin

(2015), ‘The introduction of Academy Schools to England's education’, CEP Discussion Paper No 1368, August.

14.

Halsey

A.H.

, Heath

and Ridge

(1980), Origins and Destinations: Family, Class, and Education in Modern Britain, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

15.

Jencks

C.S.

, Smith

, Ackland

, Bane

M.J.

, Cohen

, Gintis

, Heyns

and Michelson

(1972), Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of the Family and Schooling in America, New York: Basic Books.

16.

Kremer

and Maskin

(1996), ‘Wage inequality and segregation by skill’, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series, Working Paper 5718, August.

17.

Madaus

, Kellaghan

, Rakow

and King

(1979), ‘The sensitivity of measures of school effectiveness’, Harvard Educational Review, Summer.

18.

Nicoletti

and Rabe

(2013), ‘Inequality in pupils’ test scores: how much do family, sibling type and neighbourhood matter?', Economica, 80, pp. 197–218.

19.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2014), PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do: Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science, Volume 1, Paris: OECD.

20.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2016), PISA 2015 Results: Excellence and Equity in Education, Volume I, Paris: OECD.

21.

Rutter

(1983), ‘School effects on pupil progress – findings and policy implications’, Child Development, 54:1, pp. 1–29.

22.

Rutter

, Maughan

, Mortimore

and Ouston

, with Smith

(1979), Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children, London: Open Books and Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

23.

Sammons

(2007), School Effectiveness and Equity: Making Connections; A Review of School Effectiveness and Improvement Research – Its Implications for Practitioners and Policy Makers, CfBT Education Trust.

24.

Scheerens

and Bosker

(1997), The Foundations of Educational Effectiveness, Pergamon.

25.

Shakeshaft

, Trzaskowski

, McMillan

, Rimfield

, Krapohl

, Haworth

, Dale

and Plomin

(2013), ‘Strong genetic influence on a UK nationwide test of educational achievement at the end of compulsory education at age 16’, PLoS ONE 8(12): e80341 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080341.

26.

Stokes

, Bryson

and Wilkinson

(forthcoming), ‘What does leadership look like in schools and does it matter for performance?’, mimeo.

27.

Wolf

(2011), Review of Vocational Education – The Wolf Report, DfE Report DFE-00031-2011, http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/180504/DFE-00031-2011.pdf.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.08 MB