Missing data delays school league tables

THE publication of secondary school league tables has been delayed after a “significant number” of results were omitted from the government data.

Figures for 2019 were due to be published on Thursday, but a statement on the Department for Education’s website said they were delaying the release for two weeks after the results of remarked papers in key GCSEs such as English and maths were left out.

The GCSE and A-Level results of thousands of schools across England are published on an annual basis.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, told the Standard: “The official compilation of exam results is extremely important to schools since it can appreciably affect the way they are seen by inspectors and parents.

“It is absolutely right, therefore, that the Department for Education should delay publication having found a large amount of data was missing.”

The tables provide data which helps experts measure individual school performance and regional differences.

Last year’s tables revealed that nine top 10 districts for secondary schools were in London with Barnet schools scoring among the highest for “performance progress” in the Government’s new benchmark.

Neil McIvor, DfE Chief Statistician, said: “The department’s rigorous quality assurance processes have identified a processing issue that has led to a significant number of late results being omitted from the data.

We have decided to delay the full suite of key stage 4 publications by two weeks to allow us to resolve the issue.”

The data includes revised 2019 Key stage 4 performance data, Secondary school performance tables in England and multi-academy trust statistics. The data will be published on February 6.