Schools under scrutiny in crackdown on league table 'gaming'

Schools that push pupils into taking “GCSEs in karaoke” and courses in word processing in an attempt to boost their league table positions are to face renewed scrutiny from the Department for Education and Ofsted inspectors.

The DfE said it was looking closely at GCSE-equivalent qualifications such as the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), which can be taught in as little as three days but is equivalent in the DfE’s league tables to a two-year GCSE such as history.

Entries to the ECDL – which requires pupils to use Microsoft Office software such as Excel and PowerPoint – have rocketed, with the number of qualifications awarded rising from fewer than 2,000 in 2014 to more than 30,000 a year later.

Although the DfE has gone to considerable effort to stamp out “soft options”, the pressure of league tables has driven schools to enrol pupils in qualifications such as the ECDL or Trinity College London’s exam in “rock and pop” vocals.

The Trinity College London qualification requires no sight reading or theory, unlike TCL’s respected music certificates. It allows entrants to choose three songs, such as Soft Cell’s Tainted Love or Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man, as well as tracks by Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston.

One headteacher, who did not wish to be identified, said: “This is a GCSE in karaoke, in effect, but if other schools are going to use it what choice do we have? It’s dog eat dog, and the DfE should not have allowed this to count for [league table] points.”

With some schools now entering entire year groups for the ECDL, there has been a backlash from headteachers who say the qualification isn’t in the best interests of pupils, even if helps improve a school’s league table result.

Tom Sherrington, the headteacher of Highbury Grove school in Islington, London, said: “This feels like a shortcut. It diminishes the entire system by allowing in rogue equivalents like this. Is the ECDL equivalent to a two-year GCSE course in history or physics? No, anyone can see that.”

But Sherrington said the pressure on schools to maintain their league table positions meant that “if everyone else is doing it, it’s hard to be immune. I want the system to change so that we don’t have to do this.”

A DfE source said the department had raised the issue of the ECDL with Ofqual, which is responsible for regulating qualifications. The source said the ECDL and similar courses could be excluded from the DfE’s league tables from 2019 unless they were proved to be as robust as conventional GCSE subjects.

Meanwhile, Sean Harford, Ofsted’s national director for education, said that schools entering entire cohorts for the ECDL were in danger of being marked down in future Ofsted inspections. “If schools are choosing to do certain things that just get them points, rather than for the benefit of the children and their futures, we will take that into account and make their judgment appropriately,” Harford told the Times Educational Supplement (TES).

The DfE said: “We are pleased to hear Ofsted is looking into this and we will follow up with the inspectorate. We have reformed the accountability system so only high-quality courses are counted. Our new Progress 8 measure must include core academic subjects such as English, maths, science and a foreign language.”

Entries to the ECDL soared after it was promoted by the PiXL Club, a network of secondary schools that has grown rapidly in recent years as local authorities have shrunk in significance.

PiXL Club members received discounts on entering pupils for the ECDL, and an email from PiXL to more than 1,000 secondary schools said pupils could be prepared for the computer-based test in “three or four intensive days”.

A DfE source said: “We expect all schools to help students choose subjects that will help them go on to succeed in life and we would be extremely disappointed to hear of any organisation encouraging schools to enter young people for courses just to ‘game’ the system.”

Ofsted and PiXL are understood to be meeting next week to discuss the issue. PiXL did not respond to a request for comment, but Sir John Rowling, PiXL’s chair, told the TES: “We are wholeheartedly behind Ofqual and Ofsted in any work they do to find people who are abusing the system.”

An Ofqual spokesman said: “Ofqual’s role is to regulate qualifications to ensure their validity. Students’ qualifications choices are a matter for them and their schools, while league tables are a matter for the DfE.”

Prof Alan Smithers of Buckingham University said: “You can’t blame the schools. They are playing to the rules to show themselves in the best possible light. It is for the DfE, if it wants to hold schools to account in this way, to frame the Attainment 8 and Progress 8 measures so that they only include valuable qualifications.”