Under Michael Gove, schools faced increasing accountability by increasingly varied accountability measures: a move that triggered the inevitable 1984 sirens in staffrooms across the country.
Most teachers dislike the idea of more accountability - feeling that they are under greater surveillance than a TalkTalk customer’s bank details - but too often fail to see that perhaps it’s about improving transparency rather than making schools feel as though they are constantly under scrutiny.
As an economics teacher, I understand that school data transparency should improve consumer knowledge and equip parents to make an informed decision about schooling.
Of course this argument is countered by the fact that this theory of school choice is still limited by a lack of supply - according to Ofsted data, 3,394 schools have been judged satisfactory or inadequate as of 30 September 2015.
However, we should not lose sight of the idea that parents and their representatives ought to be able to see more than just GCSE percentages and an Ofsted grading.
When a parent sends their child to a private school, there will be a multitude of factors that influence the decision: among others, quality of enrichment opportunity, pastoral care, range of subjects on offer, Russell Group university progression and, of course, results.
League tables of state-maintained schools ought to reflect these too.
As such, I also support the government’s current stance on diversifying performance data to better understand why schools are failing or coasting. The government may label the inclusion of these data as accountability, but if we are not willing to disclose data - for example, about enrichment opportunities, number of fixed term exclusions, university progression or teacher retention rates - then questions must be raised into the quality of provision.
A strong argument can be made to support the idea that this move will make schools more collaborative and less competitive: while league tables in most scenarios usually force the latter, including more information within league tables about what makes outstanding schools tick will arm those struggling with more ideas on how to develop their provision for their young people.
This was part of the successful approach taken by the London Challenge, as it successfully drove up outcomes in the capital in the first decade of the 21st century.
Struggling schools need to see what high-performing schools are doing to achieve such great results for their students, and parents need to have deeper understanding of the experience that students are having and if the additional information causes more alarm bells, then schools will be more empowered to make a change.
There are, obviously, many more contributors to school success than those outlined above but I’d like to hear more of a conversation about why schools are successful rather than just about the GCSE results that prove that success - it’s what goes on behind the scenes that makes the best schools the best schools.
And we need to shine a light on this work.
Oliver Beach is an inner-London economics teacher, former Teach First graduate and star of Tough Young Teachers
