When will the Welsh Government's new post-16 performance measures be available to view on the 'My Local School' website?
Welsh Government is developing a new suite of post-16 performance measures in consultation with its stakeholders that can be used consistently across school sixth forms and further education colleges. Stakeholders have highlighted the importance of using value added to take into account learners’ individual starting points when measuring performance. Most providers have developed their own preferred ways of measuring value added and setting targets over the years. The majority of schools use the same commercially available tool; however this is not true of every provider, and there is no single measure suitable for accountability purposes.
Welsh Government went out to open tender in spring 2016 for a supplier to develop, test and implement a national model of post-16 value added. The opportunity was advertised on Sell2Wales and officials invited the three main suppliers of value added in the UK to submit a tender. Only one bid was received on this occasion. Officials evaluated the bid rigorously against the predefined evaluation criteria and found the proposal to meet all the requirements of the specification whist offering value for money. To date Welsh Government has spent £180,237 including VAT, developing and implementing the post-16 value added model.
As well as value added, the other new measures are:
- Achievement (the retention and achievement of learners undertaking A level, vocational and Welsh Baccalaureate programmes).
- Destinations (after leaving learning, did the learner successfully progress into further learning or employment?)
It is our current intention to publish the first set of measures in early 2019 covering the 2017/18 academic year at an all Wales level.
Future arrangements for disseminating and publishing data on post-16 outcomes at individual school or college level, including making information available to learners and their parents to inform decision-making, are being developed. Post-16 Choices is the working title for an outward facing portal similar to My Local School. It will provide comparable information on school and further education outcomes.
It is anticipated that that the first set of data will be published on the portal in 2020 based on 2018/19 academic year. This will ensure that the approach is well understood, fit for purpose and the data is robust enough to publish. We will be consulting on this more widely with stakeholders including providers, learners and parents in due course.