Ed Balls announced yesterday that the Government plans to introduce a new School Report Card, to give parents a new, simpler and more comprehensive way of understanding schools’ performance and achievements.

The new School Report Cards (The DCSF use this site as an example of what the new cards are based on) are part of wider changes to strengthen schools’ accountability to parents and the public, raise school standards, and reform pupil testing and assessment. The Government will set out detailed proposals on report cards for consultation with schools, parents and the public by the end of this year, leading to a White Paper in spring 2009.

Ed Balls said that externally marked Key Stage 2 tests were critically important and would continue as the key source of information for parents and the public about standards in primary schools – with ‘single level’ tests remaining a potential alternative for tests at age 11 in the future.

He announced that he was ending schools’ requirement to run national tests for 14 year olds, with immediate effect. The current compulsory national tests at the end of Key Stage 3 will be replaced by improved classroom assessment by teachers and frequent reporting to parents in years 7, 8 and 9, with a stronger focus on one-to-one tuition and catch up support for children in the first years of secondary school.
A new expert group, made up of headteachers and education professionals, will advise on the details of the new arrangements. The group will also advise Government on the introduction of national-level sampling at Key Stage 3 so that the performance of the education system as a whole can still be monitored by the public, year on year.