Measuring results for meaningful conclusions

 Are our secondary schools failing?
 
All of them or just some of them?
 
How do we know?
 
Are the measurements used and the figures we’re given adequate enough to provide us with the answers we need?
 
Either Education do not have the relevant information to defend the now annual accusations or they are in part true. We just don’t know.
 
Comparing the GCSE results of our secondary schools to those of the Grammar school is to a degree irrelevant. We’ve already proved at the age of 11 that Grammar kids are better at exams so the fact that they continue to be so shouldn’t surprise us. But just how much below this level should we expect the secondary school results to be? The published figures do not allow us to form a studied opinion.
 
It also isn’t much use comparing year to year performance of any one school or even school to school for any year.
 
This year’s intake for School A might have a larger percentage of relatively higher achievers than School B who in turn have a higher number of those who didn’t even sit the 11+ and/or have significant educational or physiological difficulties affecting their ability to learn. Is it right to compare the GCSE results of these two schools when we know that School B will always under perform with this particular year group?
 
What we need is a more effective measurement.
 
We already have base line figures as we still test at the age of 11. 
Every year, we can rank every child within a 10% band ( e.g. 100-91, 90-81 etc) according to the 11+ results with an extra lower band for those who don’t sit the exam.
 
We also know what every student within the state sector achieves at GCSE level.
 
It should therefore be easy to work out the average expected performance of any one 10% band based on the average performance of all students within that band for the accumulated previous years.
 
With School B’s breakdown across the bands, we can predict the expected results from their current “poor” year group based on the performance of similar ability students in previous years. This will then give us a better indication of how effective the teachers have been with this year group.
 
This method presumes that each year’s exams are set at a similar level to all previous years and is not therefore exact. But I suggest it is a fairer method of comparison than the crude figures presently put before us.
 
We know that our Education department collect the relevant figures every year. We don’t know what use they make of this data or whether they are even interested in measuring each student’s performance with any accuracy.
 
It now appears that the current Education department are keen on scrapping the 11+ for many reasons none which seem informed by the actual experience of education in Guernsey. It would therefore be a jump into the dark. Based on information from other countries, they think they know what to expect but don’t have any degree of certainty.
 
Use the statistical information based on real results from previous Guernsey students and you will have a much better idea of each school’s performance. If this shows that our secondary school’s are actually achieving better than expected results given their intake, then this might add to the argument for scrapping the 11+.
 
If however the figures show that our Grammar school gets more out of their intake, then there is still work to be done at the secondary level before a convincing agreement for merging can be made.
 
Yes, there are other factors involved such as motivation and disruptive behaviour but if this is what's holding the secondary schools back then it's these factors which need addressing and overcoming before any larger systematic changes to our education system are undertaken.
 
At the end of the day, we all want a better education for all of Guernsey’s children. How this is achieved can only be informed by better information to enable us to make better decisions.
 
Give us this information and use it to justify your new vision. Or is the unvarnished truth too painful to disclose?
 
We just don’t know and that is plain wrong.