North East school achieve top rankings, Tes says

An analysis conducted by Tes has revealed that schools in the North East outperform other regions on GCSE and Sats results, when the pupil’s background is taken into account, challenging claims of a North-South divide.

The study was carried out by Education Datalab and found that schools in the North East had the highest scores in the country for 2015, on the grounds of ‘contextual value’, which assesses pupils progress in addition to factors such as gender, ethnicity, depravation, special educational needs and whether English is a second or first language.

The analysis debunks Sir Michael Wilshaw’s claim that schools in the North are underperforming and evidence of a North-South divide.

Becky Allen, director of Education Datalab, told TES that emphasising a North-South divide created a rather simplistic narrative on schools.

She said: “Regions are far too large and diverse to make generalisations.”

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Our inspections always take into account the progress made by pupils from their starting points. However, we do not use contextual value added figures because we want to set high expectations for all pupils.