Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Education and Skills
The Select Committee asked for a comparison
between similar schools (in terms of the numbers of pupils' eligible
for free school meals) in and outside of Excellence in Cities.
For the purposes of these analyses EiC includes
only phases 1 and 2 (48 of 58 authorities); phase 3 has not been
included as it has not been in operation long enough to make a
statistically significant impact on the most recent GCSE results.
This allows us to see the real impact of the programme on school
standards.
Out of just over 700 EiC phase 1 and 2 schools,
nearly 500 are currently placed in FSM bands 5 and above, this
means that at least 21% of their pupils are eligible for free
school meals. In the face of this challenge:
— Pupil achievement is now higher in
these schools than in similar schools elsewhere:
— In band 5 (21-35% FSM) the percentage
of pupils achieving five or more good GCSEs was over 6.5 percentage-points
higher than similar schools elsewhere in 2002.
— EiC phase 1 and 2 pupils are progressing
further between KS3 and KS4 than schools elsewhere:
— Value added scores (which account
for individual pupil progress) in band 5 show that pupils in these
schools progressed more than half an extra GCSE further than in
schools elsewhere.
— EiC schools in phase 1 and 2 are
improving faster than schools elsewhere:
— Between 2001 and 2002 the percentage
of pupils achieving five or more good GCSEs in band 5 schools
improved faster than schools elsewhere; across the Excellence
in Cities programme improvements between 2001 and 2002 were significantly
faster on average than in schools elsewhere.
An additional related statistic is that while
the majority of schools in Excellence in Cities are in the higher
FSM bands; virtually all of the lowest FSM band schools currently
lie outside phases 1 and 2 of the programme.
April 2003
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