Performance data for the island’s primary schools should be freely available, Tynwald will be told next week.

Garff MHK Daphne Caine is to present attainment levels in 2017-18 to members, having previously asked the education minister to do so.

In October 2018, Mrs Caine asked Minister for Education, Culture and Sport Graham Cregeen to provide attainment data reports for each primary school and the island average for end of key stages one and two for the past five years.

In response to her request, said: ’This data is already freely available on each school’s website.’

However, in delivering her report to Tynwald, Mrs Caine says that having to go through 32 different websites to collate the data means, in her opinion, it is not ’freely available’.

Mrs Caine, who has repeatedly called for the publication of school league tables, asked the Clerk of Tynwald’s office to collate the information which she said she now wishes to make available to Tynwald members and the public.

She added: ’I also requested the researchers to include other data that has been released by the department that provides some social context in terms of the proportion of pupils at each school eligible for free school meals and the number of students whose first language is not English (EAL).’

However, there has been some issues with collecting the data.

These have included where smaller class numbers can be ’skewed’ by one child.

Further concerns Mrs Caine raised were that a random sample of schools show they only have the current year’s set of data easily available on their websites whereas including previous years would give a better view of schools’ performance.

The data is presented in different ways by different schools. She gives the example of Anagh Coar Primary School, which has taken 100% and split that over levels one to three to show the percentage of pupils at a certain level, whereas Arbory School used the 100% to demonstrate how pupils have completed each level.

Mrs Caine said: ’I believe schools’ attainment data should be freely available to parents and students. DESC presents comprehensive attainment data for key stage for and five (GCSE and A-Level), with interpretative graphs showing several years’ comparisons.

’I hope in the future the DESC might reconsider its stance on publishing attainment data on our primary schools, along with any additional information that can provide social context.

’This is not about ranking schools. Education professionals seem unanimous in the belief that league tables would be unhelpful but it is natural for parents to seek to compare schools’ performance to have reassurance about the attainment of their schools and perhaps to question if more disadvantaged areas need more support.’