Pupils' well-being to be measured

Schools have had a duty to promote pupils' well-being since last year

Schools in England are to be held to account on a wide range of measures of pupil well-being.

Ofsted is to use parents' and pupils' views on issues such as how a school discourages drug and alcohol use and offers relationship guidance.

Contrary to early reports, teenage pregnancy, obesity and drug use rates will not be used to judge schools.

One teaching union said there were grave dangers in using opinion surveys, another said the plans were absurd.

Under the proposals, which are out to consultation, schools will have to provide figures on their attendance rates, on persistent absenteeism and exclusion, as well as academic attainment.

Figures on the take-up of school lunches and the percentage of pupils doing at least two hours of sport a week will also be recorded and provided to Ofsted.

'Issues of concern'

But perhaps more controversially schools will also have to provide information on how well they promote healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle, how well they give good guidance on sex and relationships and discourage smoking, alcohol consumption and drug use, among other things.

This will be garnered in the form of surveys of parent and pupil opinion, however, which are already commissioned by many schools.

Instead of Ofsted doing its own survey, information from schools' own surveys will be used but these will be more standardised than they are at present, with head teachers being encouraged to use "accredited providers".

However, the consultation on the issue stressed there was no suggestion "perception data will be considered in isolation and uncritically by Ofsted".

"It may provide pointers to issues of concern to pupils and parents of which schools should be aware.

"But inspectors will need to consider the perception data carefully and alongside the other evidence," it added.

Children's minister Baroness Delyth Morgan said: "School-level indicators will help schools to assess how well they are promoting the well-being of their pupils.

"Most of this information is already being collected, so these indicators are not an extra burden but additional tools to help schools improve their wider role in their communities.

"They will build on data about pupils' attainment and progress, so that wider aspects of children's lives can be benchmarked nationally."

Regrettably, the proposal is bedevilled by the government's obsession with data Dr Mary Bousted Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert said the indicators would provide useful evidence for inspectors, to be used alongside other evidence.

Head of education at the NUT, John Bangs, said: "The danger is we get into a mechanistic evaluation but with highly subjective information on pupils' perceptions.

"It's the height of absurdity - the logical end of an absurd evaluation structure."

And Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said the proposals had a balanced view of who is responsible for a child's well-being but were bedevilled by the government's obsession with data.

"Ministers have readily accepted that important aspects of pupil well-being cannot be quantified, but in the next breath they demand statistics.

"We see grave dangers in the proposal for Ofsted inspections to take into account pupil and parent opinion surveys of how successfully a school is promoting pupil well-being, because perceptions are notoriously difficult to interpret."

But John Dunford of the Association of School and College Leaders said when well-being indicators were first discussed, his organisation was worried that schools would be held to account for matters well beyond their control, such as obesity rates.

"This consultation document has moved a very long way from that and puts forward a scheme that has the potential to give greater recognition to the contribution made by schools to the wider development of the child."

The consultation on the well-being indicators closes on 16 January, 2009.