Vol. 491 No. 6
274 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science the way in which his Department collates information from standardised testing in individual schools; the number of schools which have more than 50 per cent of students scoring more than one standard deviation below the national mean score in the tests; and the number with more than 66 per cent of students in this category. [12706/98]
My Department does not collate information from standardised testing in individual schools. Details of the numbers of students scoring more than one standard deviation below the mean are not collected.
Testing practice is not uniform across schools because not all schools use the same standardised test. Schools are encouraged to monitor their pupils' progress by means of a combination of approaches, including the use of standardised, norm-referenced tests. The vast majority of primary schools test the progress of their pupils in this way. It is left to the staff of each school to select the tests to be used for this purpose. Individual pupils' results are communicated to parents and records of progress are kept within the schools.
