Policy paper

School and college accountability: 2021 to 2022 academic year

Published 19 July 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Applies to England

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, most exams and assessments did not take place in the 2019 to 2020, or 2020 to 2021 academic years. The government also announced that it would not publish school or college level results data on compare school and college performance (also commonly referred to as school and college performance tables) in autumn 2020 or autumn 2021, and that this data would not be used to hold schools and colleges to account. We have also made clear that results data from 2020, and the 2020 to 2021 academic year will not be used in school and college level performance measures in future years. We have set out further information on school and college accountability for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.

This update sets out the way school and college accountability will operate for the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

Accountability arrangements for primary school tests and assessments

Primary school tests and assessments are designed for use in accountability and to enable benchmarking between schools. As these assessments will be returning for the first time since 2019, without any adaptations, the results will not be published in key stage 2 (KS2) performance tables in the academic year 2021 to 2022.

We will, however, still produce the normal suite of KS2 accountability measures at school level and share these securely with primary schools, academy trusts, local authorities and Ofsted for school improvement purposes and to help identify schools most in need of support. This will be a transitional arrangement for the first year in which primary assessments return. We intend to publish primary assessment data in performance tables again in the academic year 2022 to 2023. Until this point, KS2 performance data for the academic year 2018 to 2019 will continue to be publicly available on compare school and college performance.

KS2 results from 2021 to 2022 will also be used to calculate Progress 8 baselines for future institution-level progress measures.

Primary schools will be able to access their own performance data via the schools checking exercise and Analyse School Performance (ASP). We will share aggregated KS2 performance data with multi-academy trusts and will talk to them about the best way to do this.

Primary schools will continue to inform parents of their own child’s recent test and assessment results.

Accountability arrangements for key stage 4 and post-16 qualifications

Results from qualifications achieved in 2021 to 2022 will be published on school and college performance tables, using our normal suite of accountability measures, as far as that is possible. Qualifications at key stage 4 (KS4) and post-16 are designed to provide evidence of students’ achievements that open doors to their future careers. After 2 years without publication of performance data, it is important that this information is publicly available to parents and students to support them when choosing schools and post-16 institutions, given the importance of qualification outcomes to student progression.

KS4 performance measures will be available to schools in ASP and 16 to 18 school and college data will be shared via the checking exercise website.

Institution-level qualification achievement rates for post-16 providers will be published for education and training, traineeships and apprenticeships. These will be published through explore education statistics.

We recognise the uneven impact on schools and colleges of the pandemic and will ensure clear messages are placed on the performance tables to advise caution when drawing conclusions from the 2021 to 2022 data. Qualification results achieved in 2021 to 2022 will also count towards school and college performance measures in future years.

Key stage 4 and 16 to 18 performance measures in 2022

We will need to adjust the way that we calculate some performance measures at both KS4 and 16 to 18 stages for 2021 to 2022 to take account of the fact that results of qualifications achieved in 2020 and the 2020 to 2021 academic year will not be included. At 16 to 18 in particular, we will not be able to use KS4 baseline data from 2020 or 2021, which will affect the 16 to 18 value added measure and the English and maths progress measure in 2021 to 2022 and future years.

We have published information about the adjustments we will make to the way we calculate KS4 performance measures for 2021 to 2022. We have also published information about the adjustments we will make to the way we calculate 16 to 18 performance measures, and which 16 to 18 measures we will be able to publish for 2021 to 2022.

These changes to methodology have been designed to minimise the impact of gaps in data for schools and colleges, as far as possible. We will ensure messages are placed on performance tables to highlight the changes in methodology and the potential impact this might have on a school or college’s performance measures.

Use of 2022 data at all key stages

As before the pandemic, data will be used by schools, academy trusts, local authorities and others for improvement purposes and by Ofsted to inform inspections. As always, inspection judgements will not be based on any single piece of data alone and Ofsted will use this data with caution and take the COVID-19 context into account when forming a rounded judgment about a school or college.

National statistics

For the 2021 to 2022 academic year, we will publish national, regional, and local authority level educational performance data for KS2, KS4 and 16 to 18. We intend to also publish this information by pupil characteristic and school or college type.