Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-222
WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2002
DR IAN
SCHAGEN AND
DR SANDIE
SCHAGEN
220. Is it possible to do a brief note elaborating
on this for the Committee, because I think this issue of the point
at which in the ability range the value-added factor, the grammar
school factor, kicks in and what proportion of total pupils in
grammar schools are in this borderline range as against the rest
of them, and whether there is a value-added factor for the rest
of them, is absolutely fundamental. This reinforces what I would
have predicted—and I think what most parents of middle England
assume to be the case which is why there is variation—that
they want to get middle ability kids into grammar schools because
there is a levelling up factor. But do you conclude that the real
issue is the existence of a critical mass of able children in
any given school which has the power to drive up the ability of
the rest?
(Dr Sandie Schagen) That is certainly my view, although
I have not been able to go into grammar schools which I would
like to. What I would like to do is be able to track some year
7 pupils in grammar schools and others to identify where the difference
lies, because it would require that kind of research. You cannot
get that from numbers alone but that is certainly our suspicion,
backed up by some work we did for an individual LEA before we
did any of this. As part of that research it was not just the
statistical analysis we did but I also interviewed all of the
head teachers within the LEA and certainly a number of them voiced
that opinion: that it was very much being in the context of a
group of high achieving children or, on the other hand, a group
of not so high achieving children, and I am sure that is one of
the major reasons.
Mr Chaytor: But if there are lessons
that can be transferred to other schools and other systems, either
in terms of the critical mass issue or the key stage 3 entry policy
issue, then I think that is very important for our inquiry, and
if you could produce something in a bit more detail for us that
would be helpful.
Chairman
221. Would it be possible to have a note on
that?
(Dr Sandie Schagen) Yes.
Paul Holmes
222. Finally, there is lots of evidence included
in all the charts that Ofsted gave us this morning that grammar
schools, specialist schools and faith schools are selective in
various ways. For example, they take fewer children with special
educational needs and free school meals. In the report you did
for the LGA on page 46 there is evidence to suggest that faith
schools are to some extent succeeding at the expense of neighbouring
schools. Do you want to comment on that?
(Dr Sandie Schagen) That was again looking within
LEAs. We defined LEAs as having a high percentage of pupils in
faith schools, a low percentage, or no pupils in faith schools.
There are not many in the latter category but there are a few,
and we looked at the relative impact of having a lot of children
or a smaller number of children in faith schools compared with
that, and also within LEAs we looked at the performance of those
children in faith schools and those other children within the
same LEA, because if you adopt the kind of hypothesis of a social
split, as it were, or at least an academic segregation, then your
hypothesis would be that children in faith schools would do better
than the norm, and children in not competing but, say, non faith
schools in the same area, if it is the case that the brighter
children are being sent to the faith schools, then you would expect
those children to perform below the norm, and we did find a little
bit of evidence to suggest that might be the case but not a great
deal and the differences were quite small.
Chairman: Doctors Schagen, thank you
very much for your attendance. I hope you did not think it was
a discourtesy that some members had to leave but this has overrun
our normal time and some members had to get to other meetings.
We found it fascinating; we have learnt a great deal; and we hope
we can remain in communication. Thank you very much.
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