Analysis of national value-added datasets to estimate the impact of specialist schools on pupil performance

National value-added pupil-level datasets covering key stages 3 and 4 have been linked to information about specialist school status. Analysis of pupil progress across key stages controlling for a range of factors has given information about the apparent impact of these types of school. Technology and language colleges performed slightly above the norm on all outcomes, while sports colleges were slightly above the norm at GCSE, but not at key stage 3. Arts colleges were above the norm for English, but below for mathematics and science at both key stages. There was some evidence for a negative impact of the presence of specialist schools in an LEA for the value-added results of pupils in non-specialist schools at GCSE, but not at key stage 3.