Policy Centre submission on secondary education

The Policy Centre Jersey in a paper on secondary education has called for a review of the policy of selection at age 14 and for meaningful value-added figures for each secondary school so that they can be compared with each other and with schools in comparable jurisdictions.

The Centre has submitted evidence to the Children, Education and Home Affairs Panel of the States Assembly which is currently conducting a review of secondary education funding. The Centre’s response concentrates on the 14 plus secondary transfer system and educational outcomes.

The key points in the submission are -

• The future prosperity of the Island and of its young people in particular depends critically on the quality of the education that they receive.
• Jersey has an unusual secondary school structure; there is a high degree of selection and the absence of schools offering free education for the entire secondary school age range.
• The available evidence suggests that selective systems do not produce the best results.
• There is no rationale for selection at 14; it is damaging to the schools who lose those students and to the students who remain.
• There is a stated aim “to build an education system that is comparable to, or better than, other high performing jurisdictions”. However, there are no arrangements to assess how effective Jersey is in achieving this aim.
• Unlike other jurisdictions, Jersey’s practice is to make very limited evaluation of the performance of its schools and to publish very little on attainment levels.
• In 2023, at GCSE level Jersey’s performance was slightly above that of schools in England as a whole. At A level performance was below the average of all English schools. Jersey's performance is significantly below that of high performing areas in England.
• The reports under the Jersey Schools Review Framework are thin in respect of attainment and to the extent that comparisons are made they take no account at the different starting points of students.
• If there is concern about educational attainment levels and equality of opportunity in Jersey it would be appropriate to –
  • Take steps to ensure that there are meaningful value-added figures for each secondary school so that performance of the schools can be compared with each other and with schools in comparable jurisdictions.
  • Review the policy of selection at 14.
  • Evaluate the option of each of the four 11-16 schools having a sixth form.

Commenting on the submission, the Centre’s Senior Adviser, Sir Mark Boleat, said –

It is very welcome that the Education Minister has called for a debate on Jersey’s very selective secondary education system. Our submission to the Scrutiny Committee covers this in detail. At first sight it is very difficult to see the justification for selection at age 14. Our submission also deals with the publication of data on the performance of schools generally and individually. This is linked to the secondary structure issue. It is misleading for reports under the schools review framework to make comments that some schools outperform others without taking account of the starting points. Schools that are selective are bound to have better outcomes than those that are not, but that does not make them better schools.

‍