To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative assessment he has made of the performance of (a) academy trusts and (b) maintained schools during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered on
1 April 2021
As all exams due to take place in schools and colleges in England in summer 2020 were cancelled, we did not publish school, college or multi-academy trust level performance data based on summer 2020 tests, assessments and exams at any phase.
We did publish national, regional and local authority level educational performance data for Key Stage 4 and age 16-18, based on summer 2020 teacher assessed grades: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-gcses-key-stage-4.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-attainment-at-19-years.
These assessments were not designed to judge school performance, but rather simply to give pupils grades for their progression to their next stage. An assessment of the performance of different types of school has not been made.
Routine, graded Ofsted school inspections have been suspended since March 2020 and will remain so for the rest of the spring term. In the meantime, Ofsted has been carrying out non-graded monitoring inspections of schools most in need of support. In the summer term, Ofsted will conduct inspections in selected schools, but the intention is that Ofsted will return to its full programme of inspections from September 2021.
The Department has continued with robust oversight of academy trusts during the COVID-19 outbreak with further detail provided via the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/921244/RSC_decision_making_2020_-_Sep_2020.pdf. We will continue to monitor emerging evidence, including from Ofsted, on the impact of education loss and recovery during this academic year.