Respond to Government consultation by Wednesday 1 May

The Government is consulting on how secondary schools should be held to account.

• They plan to  rank schools by how well they do in eight subjects: Maths, English, three EBacc subjects and three other EBacc, academic, creative, technical or vocational subjects.
• The Government also plans to carry on publishing the dis-credited EBacc league tables (and its A-level equivalent). 
• The Government is not allowing some combinations of creative subjects to count, so if you study Dance and Drama, they will not both be able to count towards the new eight subject proposal.

Respond to the consultation by emailing: accountability.consultation@education.gsi.gov.uk

Suggested consultation answers*

The most important consultation question is question 1: 'Do you agree with the proposals for the headline accountability measures?' Below are three specific answers to the question that you can use in your response.

*there are other questions in the consultation document, but these are more detailed questions which do not necessarily require an answer.

First answer: No.

The Government should remove the bias against creative subjects in their new school ranking as laid out in paragraph 4.2 of the consultation.

The Government's option for GCSEs as set out in paragraph 4.2: 

• Maths, English plus 3 EBacc subjects and 3 EBacc or 'other' subjects.
  
  

Five ways the Government could recognise creative subjects in the league tables or remove the bias against creative subjects:

Option 1: leave it up to head teachers

• Maths, English plus 6 other subjects

Option 2: develop all pupils' creativity

• Maths, English plus 6 other subjects at least one of which is a creative subject

Option 3: broad and balanced

• Maths, English plus 6 other subjects 'requiring breadth'
  

Option 4: require non-EBacc subjects

• Maths, English plus 3 EBacc subjects and 3 non-EBacc subjects

Option 5: create a real Baccalaureate with breadth

• Maths, English plus 2 sciences (already compulsory), one vocational, one creative, one humanity and one language
  

Second answer: No.

The Government should stop publishing the EBacc league tables and discredited A-level equivalent (ABacc) or expand them to include creative subjects. 

The Government is still publishing the damaging EBacc league table.

The Government have accepted that they made a mistake when introducing the A-level league table which required all three A-levels to be 'facilitating subjects' and have started to publish a league table in which just two A-level options have to be 'facilitating subjects.'

Unfortunately, despite accepting they made a mistake, they haven't deleted the discredited league table!

We want the Government to delete the 3 A-level ABacc league table at least, and also remove the 2 A-level ABacc league table which continues to ubdermine the value of creative subjects.

At the very least, the Government should instead publish enough data to allow parents and pupils to design their own league tables and make their own choices.

Third answer: No.

The Government should ensure that subjects are given equal weighting in league tables and should not block certain combinations of subjects from counting towards attainment levels.

By giving subjects such as Dance and Drama, or Photography and Art & Design the same 'subject codes', the Government is stopping these combinations of subjects from counting towards the league tables. Only one will be able to count.

They are not doing this with the EBacc subjects so this is not about guaranteeing breadth and paragraph 5.6 of the consultation document is therefore misleading as certain combinations of subjects are being discounted.

Some specialist art secondary schools, despite good Ofsted inspection results, are worried that this will have a harmful impact on their students opportunities. 


The Cultural Learning Alliance has some useful information on this.