Michael Gove – 2013 Comments on School Performance Figures

The comments made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, on 6 March 2013.

Publishing all this information is a dramatic step change in the accountability of the school system. The aim of publishing the school-by-school spending data is not to point fingers, but to ensure we better understand how the best and most effective schools achieve what they achieve with the money and resources they have.

The coalition government has protected the overall school budgets for the next 4 years and are investing an additional £3.6 billion, which includes the pupil premium targeted at disadvantaged pupils. We need to ensure that every pound is spent as effectively as possible and the best way of doing that is by shining a light on the best practice within the existing schools system, allowing headteachers, governors and parents to learn from the best.

We hope this data, along with the new performance measures, will drive forward an appetite for people to ask for more data. The Department for Education will make available to whoever asks for it data so that people can construct their own performance tables based on a range of measures they want.

This is one of the exciting things the coalition government is doing – empowering parents, the profession and wider public to judge schools in the way they consider appropriate.