Union leaders have raised the alarm over the government “covertly” measuring schools after Nick Gibb spoke out against his department dropping the English Baccalaureate from performance metrics.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has spoken out following comments reportedly made by the schools minister that he had gone “ballistic” that phonics and the EBacc had been dropped from Department for Education metrics after he lost his job as a minister.
Mr Gibb was speaking to Conservative Home about his time as schools minister, a post he has held three times spanning more than a decade.
He is reported as saying: “What I discovered during my second period in government was that they weren’t using the phonics when they were assessing schools. Nor were they using the EBacc figure, because again it’s controversial, heads don’t like it.
“So I insisted they put it on their template. It didn’t happen. Eventually, it did happen, after a lot of screaming and shouting.
“Then I left office in September 2021, came back in October 2022, and one of the first meetings I had, no phonics results in the metrics, no EBacc entry.
“I just went ballistic. The second I’m out the door, they just drop all these measures…”
Mr Barton has questioned what performance metrics Mr Gibb was referring to.
He told Tes: “Nick Gibb appears to be referring to a template of some sort being used by the DfE covertly to measure schools. We have no idea what this is. If the department is using a system to assess schools - in addition to the myriad systems that are already in place and known about - then we really need to know what it is and how it is being used.”
He warned that “it would be quite improper if schools are being covertly ‘assessed’ by a system they are unaware of in a way that has implications for them”.
Mr Barton said: “The education system is already subjected to far too many accountability processes without there being yet another lurking in the background. We would really like to see the minister devoting his energies to improving funding and teacher supply - the things that schools and colleges actually need - rather than fixating on arcane accountability measures.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It is wrong to suggest that the Department for Education ‘covertly’ measures schools without their awareness. The department has published clear guidance on performance measures used for accountability.
“As set out in the Academies Regulatory and Commissioning Review, we will also be publishing commissioning guidance in due course which will increase transparency around how we use data to make decisions.
“Given the importance of the development of early reading and of secondary schools having the EBacc at the heart of their curriculum, Ministers are of course interested in individual schools’ Phonics Screening Check outcomes or EBacc entry rates in addition to other data.”
Mr Gibb has been a longstanding champion of the EBacc - a performance measure created to encourage schools to get pupils to study traditional academic subjects.
To achieve the EBacc, a pupil needs to complete English, maths, two sciences, history or geography and a modern foreign language.
The government had set a target of 75 per cent of pupils studying the subjects needed by 2022 and for 90 per cent to do so by 2025.
When Mr Gibb lost the job as schools minister in a 2021 reshuffle, Mr Barton urged the department to end its EBacc targets and reform exams.
Mr Gibb returned to the department for a third time in October 2022 as schools minister after Rishi Sunak replaced Liz Truss as prime minister.
