SCHOOL CATEGORISATION
The National School Categorisation system gives us a clear and fair picture of how well a school is performing compared with other schools across Wales and helps us to identify the schools that need the most help, support and guidance to improve.
The system has been developed collectively between regional education consortia and Welsh Government. Its primary function is to identify, across Wales, the schools that need the most support. It is not about labelling or creating league tables. The colour category of support allocated to a school will trigger a bespoke, tailored support programme.
The system is based on three simple steps. It is not purely data-driven and takes into account the quality of leadership, teaching and learning in our schools.
Outcome Indicators: In previous years, the Welsh Government used a set of information (such as GCSE results and information on attendance) to analyse schools’ performance and place them in one of four standards groups. From this year onwards, the Welsh Government will no longer publish a standards group for schools. Instead schools will now use a broader set of performance information to evaluate how they are doing, which will take into account their local context. This will form the starting point of discussions with their regional consortium challenge advisor about their performance and area for improvement. This change has been made as a result of our work to change accountability within our education system and make sure that schools, and their learners, are given the right support at the right time so they can fully achieve their potential.
Challenge advisers from regional consortia evaluate the school’s capacity to improve, taking account of evidence about the standards achieved and the quality of leadership and learning and teaching. They will also use information from the Welsh Government to inform this evaluation and discussions with schools.
Support category: The outcomes from step two are used to decide on each school’s final support category. The final categorisation is a colour code that shows the level of support a school needs – green, yellow, amber or red (with the schools in the green category needing the least support and those in the red category needing the most intensive support).
Bishop Vaughan has been awarded a GREEN A rating.
​
Full report details are available on the My Local School website.