The government has announced changes to schools performance tables in England, and is removing a large number of “low-quality” vocational courses from the data. In an independent review earlier this year these courses were blamed for distorting the figures and their failure to give parents a true picture of pupils attainment at individual schools.

On releasing the announcement of the performance table shake-up, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said, “Parents want more information so they can judge schools’ performance. The changes we have made mean that parents will have a complete picture of their local schools so they can choose the right school for their child.”

The changes mean that only the “highest quality qualifications” will be included in the new school league tables.

Professor Alison Wolf was asked by the government to conduct a review of vocational education last year. In the review she highlighted that some GCSE equivalent courses were worth as much as six GCSEs in the tables.

One of the conclusions drawn from the review was that schools were encouraging pupils to take up ‘softer’ courses in order to boost the schools’ performance indicators.

Professor Wolf said, “In recent years, schools have been under enormous pressure to pile up league table points. When any qualification under the English sun can contribute to these, the pernicious effects are obvious.”

The government is planning to draw up a set of “strict criteria” for such courses, including whether or not they include external assessment, have been taught widely for two years, offer broad progression into occupational areas and are graded A*-G.

Teachers will still be able to offer any qualifications which are approved for 14-16 year olds, but only the “most rigorous” will count in league tables.

All full-course GCSEs, established iGCSEs and AS levels will continue to count in the tables.

The English Baccalaureate – a mark of achievement for GCSE-stage pupils – will stay the same despite calls from teachers and unions for more breadth. Pupils’ results will count towards the EBacc measure if they achieve a C or better in each of English, maths, geography or history, the sciences and a language (modern or ancient).

The Association of School and College Leaders  has expressed concern that the reformed tables, while providing valuable comparative data, the “plethora” of information may not give an accurate picture to the general public of how a school is doing.

Malcolm Trobe, ASCL policy director said ““The Wolf Review was right to identify problems with the use of non-GCSE equivalences in the previous tables; however these proposals may well swing the pendulum back too far in the opposite direction. There is an old adage that you should measure what is important, not just what is easy to measure, and this applies to what goes into performance tables.”

“ Schools are judged on the performance tables so they will be under pressure to offer only qualifications that are included, especially when budgets are tight, and this could mean that some courses of immense value to certain students are lost.”

The government states that these reforms will be in place by 2014.