Should England make setting and streaming compulsory?

The Guardian has reported that Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is pondering a new policy for Ofsted, the school inspectorate.

Patrick Wintour says schools in England could now face a presumption in favour of setting and streaming.

To cut through the jargon, that means either sorting children by ability into different classes in individual subjects (“setting”) or separating children into different groups by ability in which they stay for all classes (“streaming”).

The former is commoner than the latter.

Ms Morgan told Parliament on Wednesday afternoon that there was “no truth” to the report.

Still there might be action in this area – even something close to this idea.

There is some enthusiasm for it at the top of the Conservative Party.

Lots of tinkering

As I wrote on Monday, ministers do really love micro-interventions.

Despite all the talk of autonomy for teachers and school leaders, there’s a lot of tinkering.

But that is because this sort of thing is what voters understand.

And talk of setting and streaming is a way to express a preference for traditional education.

The construction of the idea also illustrates how, with so many schools now converted to academy status, the only lever the government has left is Ofsted.

Academies, after all, may opt out of the national curriculum. The inspector and the league table are, for most of them, their only real oversight.

Still, we can say some things about setting and streaming thanks to an international study called Pisa, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It is, in effect, a survey of schools combined with tests.

It asks participating schools about their habits, then tests their 15 year olds to see what lessons we can draw.

The survey fixates on Maths. It also runs state and private schools together, and England is included with the rest of the UK.

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