The Education (School Performance Information) (England) Regulations 1992

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these Regulations—

“the 1988 Act” means the Education Reform Act 1988;

“CTC” means city technology college and city college for the technology of the arts;

“education authority”, in relation to a school maintained by a local education authority, means that authority and, in relation to a grant-maintained school or a CTC, means the authority in whose area the school is situated;

“GCE `A' level examinations” and “GCE `AS' examinations” mean General Certificate of Education advanced level and advanced supplementary examinations respectively;

“GCSE” means General Certificate of Secondary Education;

“maintained secondary school” means—

(a)

any county or voluntary secondary school;

(b)

any maintained special school which is not established in a hospital and which provides secondary education; and

(c)

any grant-maintained secondary school;

but excludes schools deemed to be secondary schools by virtue of the Education (Middle Schools) Regulations 1980(1);

“prescribed public examination” means a public examination which is for the time being prescribed by regulations made under section 106 of the 1988 Act(2);

“previous school year”means the school year immediately preceding the reporting school year, but subject to paragraph (5) excludes the school year 1990/91;

“reporting school year” means the school year immediately preceding the school year in which information is required to be provided to the Secretary of State pursuant to regulation 5; and

“special class” means a class so designated by the education authority (in the case of a school maintained by the authority), governing body (in the case of a grant-maintained school) or proprietor (in the case of a CTC), in which all or the majority of pupils have special educational needs.

(2) In these Regulations, except where the context otherwise requires—

(a) references to pupils of a particular age are to pupils who attained that age during the period of twelve months ending on the 31st August immediately preceding the commencement of the reporting school year and who were registered pupils at the school on the third Thursday in January in the reporting school year;

(b) references to examinations for which pupils at the school were entered include examinations for the syllabuses of which pupils were prepared at the school (within the meaning of section 106(11) of the 1988 Act) but for which they were entered otherwise than in pursuance of section 117 of the 1988 Act; and

(c) any reference to the date up to which parents may express a preference for a school is a reference to the date by which, in accordance with arrangements made by the local education authority in pursuance of section 6(1) of the Education Act 1980, a parent wishing education to be provided for his child in the exercise of the authority’s functions should express such a preference.

(3) Where a percentage which is required to be calculated by virtue of these Regulations is not a whole number it shall be rounded to the nearest whole number, the fraction of one half being rounded upwards to the next whole number.

(4) Particulars to which these Regulations apply may be made available in the form of data from which the particulars are capable of being extracted by computer.

(5) For the purposes of these Regulations any prescribed public examination for which a pupil aged 15 or 17 was entered during the previous school year shall be treated as such an examination for which the pupil was entered during the reporting school year.

(6) References in column 2 of Schedule 2 to these Regulations to GCSE National Criteria are to criteria which are applied by the School Examinations and Assessment Council (being a body designated by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 5(3) of the 1988 Act) in determining whether to approve a syllabus for the purposes of section 5(1)(a) of the 1988 Act(3).

(7) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires, any reference to a numbered regulation is a reference to the regulation bearing that number in these Regulations, any reference to a numbered paragraph is to the paragraph of that regulation bearing that number, any reference in a paragraph to a subparagraph is a reference to a subparagraph of that paragraph and any reference to a Schedule is to a Schedule to these Regulations.

(1)

S.I. 1980/918.

(2)

The current regulations are the Education (Prescribed Public Examination) Regulations 1989 (S.I. 1989/377).

(3)

The criteria are contained in the publication “GCSE: the National Criteria” (ISBN 0 11 270569 3).