Gender & Ethnicity Reports

We have had a number of requests as to whether we can provide gender and ethnicity reports. We can. But I would hope that these will be used in the way described below, and not to stereotype the performance of different groups.

We offer A, AS and BTEC gender and ethnicity reports. These show performance against the main Alps indicators by group.

We are clear that at Alps we believe that the performance of all students of equal abilities, as measured by their incoming GCSE scores, in post 16 A level, AS level and BTEC national qualifications can and should achieve minimum standards irrespective of gender, ethnic group or socio-economic background. In the late 1980s when we set out on the Alps journey, as a staff, we considered how daft it seemed that we should expect different A level outcomes from three students, all of whom achieved say, 4 B and 4 C grades at GCSE just because one was a white female, one was a black male and one was a male with an Asian background.

This is all about expectations. From our point of view, we told these students on the second day of their course that we would have failed them and them us if they did not achieve at least CCD at A level. What we then did was monitor each individual student closely to ensure that their performance did not drop below this level, formally in November, March and June each year and informally in between where necessary.

The net effect of this has been to see little difference in A level scores on average between females and males, and between students of difference ethnic origins. The vast majority of our students achieve their target grades and many actually improve on grades set because of the Alps systems we have in place.

These Alps gender and ethnicity reports can enable schools and colleges to analyse value added performance of the groups of students they ask us for – male vs female etc. One of the uses of the reports will be to inform self assessment reports or school evaluation forms. They will also provide contextual value added data for use in Ofsted inspections and will fulfil government requirements.

The reports will explore performance in the various ways in which are familiar to those of you already using Alps reports. The reports allow you to explore interesting questions; are students making similar progress in all subjects and at all levels? Are male and female students making similar progress in all subjects? Are there differences in achievement between ethnic minority groups? Are the differences in progress made by male and female students related to prior attainment? Are ethnic minority students over/under represented in a particular subject?

The answers to such questions allow you to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses and to develop a purposeful agenda for quality improvement.