Valuing English primary schools

Valuing Primary Schools

Parents of young children are preoccupied with getting their children into good primary schools. If you have children who are approaching primary school age, then conversation inevitably comes round to this topic. Politicians and the media discuss the issue frequently. Government policy has, at least in principle, made parental preference the key factor in primary school admissions. In practice...

Power, agency and middle leadership in English primary schools

Pupil composition and accountability: An analysis in English primary schools

This paper examines the role of social class and prior achievement composition effects on pupils’ progress and the judgements made about school performance. It finds that there are small but significant compositional effects on pupil progress raising questions about how pupils can best be allocated to schools. Comparisons between the official contextual value addedmodel and one that includes co...

Value-Added in English Schools

Are Catholic Primary Schools More Effective than Public Primary Schools?

This paper assesses the causal effects of Catholic primary schooling on student outcomes such as test scores, grade retention, and behavior. Catholic school students have substantially better average outcomes than do public school students throughout the primary years, but we present evidence that selection bias is entirely responsible for these advantages. Estimates based on several empirical ...