Contextualising Catholic school performance in England

Abstract

Despite there being significant numbers of state maintained Catholic schools in England, they have, until recently, proved to be of interest only to a minority of researchers. Government initiatives to promote greater scrutiny and accountability through the publication of school test and examination results have generated interest in their academic performance from proponents and critics. Early attempts by government to compare school performance using ‘raw’ examination and test scores were severely criticised. Newly introduced ‘Contextualised Value Added’ measures, when correctly applied, have largely overcome the deficiencies of earlier datasets. This paper presents new CVA performance data provided by Ofsted that may help the debate about Catholic school effectiveness to progress. Possible reasons for the CVA findings are explored and further areas for research are suggested.

Acknowledgements

This article could not have been written without the data supplied by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). I am very grateful for its support and encouragement and, particularly, the co‐operation I have received from a number of individual officers from Ofsted and from the Department for Children, Schools & Families (DCSF) who helped with the preparation and presentation of the data. I am also grateful for the comments and suggestions made by the two anonymous reviewers of an earlier draft. However, the contents of this article are the personal responsibility of the author and must not be taken as the official view of Ofsted, DCSF or any other persons or organisation.

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