The Department for Education (DfE) has updated its guidance on primary and secondary school accountability to include the ‘coasting’ schools definition for 2017. This is a data based accountability measure which sits alongside the floor standard as a way for the DfE to identify schools where pupil outcomes may be a concern.
The floor standard is the minimum standard that the DfE expects schools to meet; the 2017 floor standards are:
- A primary school will be below the floor standard if less than “65% of pupils meet the expected standard in English reading, English writing and mathematics” or the school does not make the required amount of progress, which is “at least -5 in English reading, -5 in mathematics and -7 in English writing”.
- A secondary school will be below the floor standard if: “it’s Progress 8 score is below -0.5, and the upper band of the 95% confidence interval is below zero”.
The category of ‘coasting’ school was introduced in 2016 as a way for the DfE to identify schools in which pupils “do not fulfil their potential”. Whether a school is ‘coasting’ is based on three years of data, although some schools with small cohorts/lack of pupil data will be excluded from this measure. The DfE confirmed that a school be considered to be ‘coasting’ if:
- For secondary schools, in 2015, fewer than 60% of pupils achieved 5 A*-C at GCSE” and, in 2016 and 2017, if “the school’s progress 8 score was below -0.25”.
- For primary schools, “in 2015, fewer than 85% of pupils achieved level 4 in English reading, English writing and mathematics and below the national median percentage of pupils achieved expected progress in all of English reading, English writing and mathematics” and, in 2016 and 2017 “fewer than 85% of pupils achieved the expected standard at the end of primary schools and average progress made by pupils was less than -2.5 in English reading, -2.5 in mathematics or -3.5 in English writing”.
We are pleased to inform you that there are no schools in Haringey that fell below the Floor standard in 2017.