A scorecard that aims to assess how well schools are serving disadvantaged pupils is being trialled in the hope that Ofsted will adopt a similar approach.
It includes checks on community engagement, off-rolling and whether schools are taking on their “fair share” of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The South-West Social Mobility Commission, which created the “equity scorecard”, hopes the approach will form part of the new report cards being launched by Ofsted in September next year.
The scorecard, which focuses on three main areas - “disadvantaged outcomes”, “disadvantaged inclusion”, and “community engagement” is being trialled in 20 schools across the South West.
Scorecard aims to inspire Ofsted
A report outlining the approach calls for Ofsted inspections to have a more “explicit and focused approach” to tackling disadvantage, and warns that the current system does not place “sufficient emphasis on this vital aspect of schools’ work”.
It adds that despite “widening inequities”, Ofsted inspections provide a “narrow and unrealistic view” of what schools do and give “little explicit focus on the extra barriers faced by some children in their learning”.
Tes understands that senior Ofsted officials have seen the proposals.
Lee Elliot Major, a professor in social mobility at the University of Exeter and one of the authors of the report, said: “The equity scorecard shines the spotlight on how well schools are doing specifically for pupils from under-resourced backgrounds - are they taking their fair share of children from the local area who are facing extra barriers to their learning, and are they enabling them to flourish inside and outside the classroom?”
The report said the wider aim of the work is for these three strands “to form part of a broader scorecard for assessing schools, due to be introduced by Ofsted from September 2025”.
The proposals come after the government scrapped Ofsted’s overall single-word-judgement grading system. A new scorecard approach is expected to get under way in the new academic year.
Ofsted chief Sir Martyn Oliver has previously said that he wants the new framework to “highlight the most vulnerable children and children with special educational needs”.
In the equity scorecard, schools will be assessed on how well they perform for their pupils from under-resourced backgrounds, looking at metrics such as absence, core subject pass rates and future opportunities.
It will also focus on the inclusion of disadvantaged pupils, which would see schools marked for taking their “fair share” of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as looking at off-rolling, suspensions and exclusions.
The Labour manifesto pledged to introduce annual safeguarding, attendance and off-rolling reviews as part of its reform of the inspection system.
The final area the scorecard will focus on is community engagement, including parents’ evening attendance and a pupil, parent/carer and staff opinion score.
‘It works as self-assessment tool’
For each criterion, the scorecard will compare a school’s current performance with its recent past performance, as well as local authority and national averages.
This will allow each school to “understand its performance over time and against relevant benchmarks”, the report outlining how the scorecard will work said.
The commission hopes that the scorecard will act as a self-assessment tool to support schools to “develop a deeper understanding of their performance in key areas of practice”.
To reduce the workload for schools, the commission is working to develop an automated tool for data collection and calculation. It is also considering a scorecard for primary schools.
Ofsted has been approached for a comment.
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