DCSF: Bridging Series for Outcomes for Looked After Children: Comparison of Data from Matched Administrative Source with Current Aggregate Source

This is a new Statistical Release which contains a comparison of figures on outcomes for looked after children, currently collected via the OC2 data collection with figures derived from a matched administrative data source taken from the National Pupil Database and the Children Looked After database.

This publication includes previously published figures based on the OC2 data and figures based on the new matched administrative data source. For 2009, the OC2 data will still be used as the main source for the attainment of looked after children and these figures will be published in April 2010 in the usual Statistical First Release. However, 2009 will be the last year of the OC2 collection and from 2010 onwards, the matched administrative data will be used to measure the attainment of looked after children.

These statistics are published as 'Experimental Statistics' which reflects the fact that we are working with a new data source and using a new methodology. These figures should be treated with caution as this is the first year for which such data have been published. We would welcome comments and feedback on the methodology and results.

Overall, figures based on the matched CLA-NPD data are slightly lower than those from the aggregate OC2 collection; however different patterns are seen for each Key Stage, for example:

• Key Stage 2 - The differences between the matched CLA-NPD data and the OC2 data are a lot smaller at Key Stage 2 than Key Stage 1 where for science there is no difference in the percentage achieving the expected result in the most recent year, 2008, and for English and mathematics there is a difference of just 1 percentage point.
• Key Stage 4 - The differences between the OC2 data and the CLA-NPD data are slightly larger at Key Stage 4 and this is likely to be due to the lower volumes of UPNs which we have received for this group. For example, for the percentage achieving 5+A*-G at GCSE/ GNVQ, the difference is around 3 percentage points.